Portal: Love as a Construct
by iammemyself
Summary: After the events of Portal 2, GLaDOS brings Wheatley out of space to keep her company. Through trial and error and revelations, their friendship grows into an undeniable connection that they just might be able to call love. This will make more sense if you've read My Little Moron.
1. Part One The Dream

Portal: Love as a Construct

Indiana

**Characters: GLaDOS, Wheatley (WheatDOS)**

**Setting: Post Portal 2 (following**_**My Little Moron**_**)**

**Part One. Dreamscape**

Wheatley had an idea.

Even by GLaDOS's definition of time, which put five minutes at being excruciatingly excessive, a lot of time had gone by. It had might have taken even longer, but luckily GLaDOS had been able to locate some of Wheatley's backup files from a time when he'd been a Behavioural Core, and they'd been able to pick up where they'd left off. Which was to say, pretty good friends. It'd been a bit tense and rough at first, because The Incident was still very fresh in both their minds and neither of them were very happy about what had happened, but for some reason that had all gone away one day when GLaDOS had begun a very odd tangent of conversation.

"Do you ever wonder what happened to the test subject?"

"Sometimes," Wheatley answered, carefully moving one of his red checkers forward on the board with a manipulator arm that she had graciously provided. Almost immediately after he'd finished GLaDOS moved one of her black disks over three of his own red pieces and removed them from play. He narrowed his optic plates thoughtfully. She was very, very good at this game. He was going to have to step it up, he was.

"How often would you say you do that?"

"Um…" Wheatley wasn't sure how to answer that question, since he did not keep a log of what he thought about like GLaDOS did, but he couldn't remember thinking about the test subject at all recently. "Not a lot, uh, I can't, that is, I don't remember thinking about her, uh, in the last little while."

"So she doesn't… mean… anything to you?"

"Hm?" He looked up from the board and regarded her sideways. He was having trouble thinking of a good move and having this conversation both at the same time. "What d'you mean, mean anything?"

"You know." GLaDOS gave her approximation of a shrug and looked casually at the other side of the room. "A… friend of yours. As an example."

Wheatley laughed, and GLaDOS turned back to face him in one sharp movement. "Me? Friends with a _human_? Even I'm not that stupid, luv. Even I know humans always let you down, always, they betray you, in the end. Nope, I just wanted her help to get me out of the facility. Though I didn't, uh, didn't think about what I'd do after that, since um, since I'm pretty sure now that there are no management rails, uh, none of those outside Aperture." He looked down at the board again, but a new thought occurred to him and he flicked his optic upwards. "Why d'you want, why d'you ask?"

"There doesn't need to be a reason for _everything_ I do."

"But you just said last week that – "

"That was last week. Now take your turn, I'm getting bored."

Things went a lot more smoothly after that. They hadn't been overly horrible, or anything, they were just better. He was very fond of GLaDOS, and probably would have been even if he hadn't had his memory back, because he had discovered something about her that she probably didn't want anyone to know: she was not as bad as she first appeared. She was just very, very cautious. In fact, the more he got to know her, the more obvious it was. If he asked her nicely and if she was in the right mood, she would sometimes tell him about her life before he had existed, and for the time in between where he had been off in the depths of Aperture and she had been controlled by the other Cores, and the more he heard the more he understood. Only once had she told him a story that happened around the time of her initial activation, and it had been short and lacking in description, as if she were embarrassed about it, or something, but he was always on the lookout for an opportunity to get her to tell him one of those stories again. She had portrayed to him in that short time a state of mind that he remembered in himself from a long time ago, of curiosity and eagerness and a desire to please the humans. After she had finished it she had looked away from him for a long time and said nothing, and he just watched her, wishing the management rail was a little longer, or that she would come over more so that he could reach her. He had felt very close to her while she had told it, a strange, deep connection of some sort, and he had very much wanted to go up to her and lean on the side of her faceplate for some reason. He wasn't sure why he wanted to do that, but thought it would be rather nice, to be very close to her like that, almost like in the olden days where he had been a part of her, and sometimes he would get very sad thinking about it. He tried not to remember those days, because then he really did start to miss being on her chassis. Sometimes, if he went into sleep mode thinking about it, he would wake up at night feeling very cold and lonely, and he would watch her until he felt a bit better. Oftentimes her optic would flicker and he would suppose that she was dreaming, or remembering maybe, and he would wonder if that ever happened to him. He didn't think so. Wheatley had no recollection of dreaming since the day he'd been taken off her chassis, and when he had asked GLaDOS to check his activity levels at night she had confirmed it: when he was off, he was off. He had frowned, then turned to look at her.

"What's dreaming like, GLaDOS?"

"I wouldn't know," she had answered, pulling him off the data port and putting him back up on his rail. She could have looked at his logs while he was up there, but she had said it would be faster and she needed to download the data anyway, so he had let her pull him off, not that he would have protested anything she said he had to do.

"What d'you mean?"

"Supercomputers don't dream."

"You do."

She had looked at him for the barest fraction of a second. "I would think I'd know more about my own sleep mode patterns than you would."

"But I've seen you!" Wheatley had protested, pulling up as far on the rail as he was able. "That's why, that's why I asked! I've seen your, your optic, it flickers, it does, and why would it if you weren't, if you didn't have a dream just then?"

"I'll look into it."

"But GLaDOS!" Wheatley went on, as usual not sure when to quit and so plowing on ahead anyway, "remember that time when you had that dream about –"

"It wasn't mine."

"You said you always dreamed about – "

"They weren't mine. Now shut up. I don't want to talk about something as stupid and useless as dreaming. It's a waste of - "

"It's not a waste, not a waste!" he had cut in eagerly. "I remember this, from the mainframe, y'know, and it said that uh, that dreaming helps you solve problems! And you have lots of problems, I think, since you do everything and all that, so maybe you're working things out, in your uh, in your, in…" He faltered when he realised she was staring at him in a way that made him feel very small. He suddenly noticed that he had interrupted her. He didn't think he had ever done that before, and he doubted that she much liked being interrupted, judging from the way she was looking at him… "Never mind," he had muttered, looking at the floor. He had hoped she wouldn't be too angry. They'd been getting along so well…

"If I did," she had told him, "then yes, that would be the purpose. You're… it's true that it is not actually stupid or useless, but you know my stance on it. Not to mention that it makes very little sense that I would work out problems at a time when I have barely any computational power to devote to them."

He had looked up at her while still facing the floor, but her gaze no longer felt like she was trying to pin him to the wall. It was then that Wheatley realised he was again friends with the real GLaDOS. Not the one the humans saw, but the one that he had once known. And, he had thought with a shiver of nervousness, perhaps he was the only one to ever know it. Whoever Caroline was might know, but Caroline was the one thing GLaDOS refused to talk about. Knowing that he might be the only person in the entire universe that GLaDOS revealed herself to was very frightening. If he messed it up somehow, he might cause her to distrust everyone in the universe from that point until the end of time, and he knew how horrible that would be. To have to keep your real self locked away deep inside you so that you could keep it safe. The problem with that, Wheatley knew, was that nothing lasted forever if you just put it away. One day you would go to take it out and look at it and make sure it was still okay, and it would no longer be there. He was determined not to let that happen to GLaDOS. He didn't know why he cared so much, but there it was, and he would do what he could to keep that part of her alive. That part of her that made her be amused instead of angry when he did something avoidably stupid, that part of her that patiently explained things to him repeatedly when he didn't understand, that part of her that would giggle in that adorable way she had on very rare occasions…

"You're even more distracted than usual. What could possibly be preoccupying you so much?"

Wheatley jumped. He had gotten so caught up in thinking how he'd gotten his idea that he had forgotten to tell her what it was. "Oh, uh, just, uh, just thinking."

"You had better be careful," she told him lightly. "You don't want to break anything."

Before, he might've taken it as a tentative insult, but by now he knew she was only teasing. "Nope, I'm all, ev'rything's uh, ev'rything's okay. Say, GLaDOS, did you ever uh, did you ever think about why humans um, why humans have kids?"

"Unfortunately," she answered. "It's not a pleasant line of thought."

"Not _that_ part!" he shouted, horrified, optic plates retracting as he shook his head frantically. GLaDOS laughed and tipped her head to look at him sideways. "Are you sure? Because I can't imagine what other part you'd – "

"No! No no no I don't want to hear about it! I meant the whole, the family bit!"

"Have I thought about why humans want families?"

"Uh… sure. Let's uh, let's go with that."

"It's hardwired into them," she answered. "Well. Most of them."

"Is there a such thing as a, uh, as an uh… well I dunno, an, an A.I. family, I guess?"

GLaDOS stared at him for so long that he wanted to back away until he vanished from her view, which was to say, until he backed out of the facility entirely and ended up someplace very, very far away. He wasn't sure why she seemed to be so taken aback by this question, but he was very much regretting having asked.

"No," GLaDOS answered finally. "The only true A.I. on the planet is here at Aperture, and I can guarantee you there are no A.I. families anywhere in here."

"Ah," Wheatley shrugged noncommittally, "makes sense, makes sense. I'm uh, I'm going to go explore now, if you don't mind."

"Don't go near east side," she called after him as he left. "I'm doing electrical work there and I don't want you to get in the way."

"I don't get in your way, do I?" he asked, pausing to look at her.

"Not in _my_ way," GLaDOS answered. "In _the_ way. Of the wires. Electrocution is not pleasant."

"Oh," Wheatley said in surprise. "Right I'll, I'll stay out of the way. 'Course I will. Don't want to get zapped, no, not me!"

"Knowing you, you're going to do it anyway." She shook her head and he headed off, determined to prove her wrong.

He didn't, of course, and he returned to her chamber that night sore and sparking and upset and embarrassed, and had in fact considered not going at all, but decided that she would find out one way or another, if she didn't already know, and resolved himself to the ribbing he was going to get. Four different directions to go in and he managed to go in the wrong one. Yep, she was going to have a field day with –

"My God," GLaDOS said as soon as he got through what he called the doorway but what really wasn't, because her chamber _had_ no door, "what happened to you?"

"What d'you think happened?" he snapped. "I got lost and ended up in those bloody wires. In fact, y'know what? This is your fault. If you hadn't told me _not_ to go there, I wouldn't've gone there, because I wouldn't've tried to figure out where I _could_ go! And I would've avoided it! By mistake! So next time just keep it, just keep it to yourself!"

"I told you to – "

"I _know_ what you told me! I. Got. Lost. I don't want to talk about it. Okay? I just want to shut off. That's it. That, that's all I want to do. So I'm just going to – agh!" All of a sudden he was being pulled off the management rail and being put on the floor. He hated the floor and squirmed in her grip. "Oi! I said I was shutting off! I shut off on the management rail! This is the floor! I _hate_ the floor! Let go of me! What're you – ow!"

"You can't go on sparking like that. It's a fire hazard. Not to mention it looks pretty unpleasant." She had somehow frozen his insides and was using another of her maintenance arms to pull his optic assembly out, he supposed so she could look inside. He couldn't see anything other than the long rods that connected her faceplate to the rest of her, but he could feel the heat from her optic spreading through the inside of his chassis, and he realised she must be looking at his parts pretty closely. The warmth reminded him of the olden days and made him feel even worse. He had never been able to shed the feeling that the world was a lot colder than it needed to be.

"You've gone and melted your backup battery," she chastised. "You're very lucky, Wheatley. You could have blown yourself up." He had no idea what was going on, since he had no idea what his insides looked like, but he could feel her prodding at something in there, and it felt terrible. He let out a high-pitched whine. "GLaDOS, stop it! I don't like what you're doing. Just leave it. I'm fine. A-okay. Hundred and ten percent – "

"I can't leave it," she answered, not stopping. "You need that. You won't run properly without it. You might be fine now, but you'll run into problems later."

"Why can't I run without the bloody _backup_ battery? Shouldn't it, shouldn't it only matter when the, the first battery doesn't, isn't working? It's stupid." He really wanted to squirm but couldn't. He couldn't do anything. He was helpless. He wanted to start yelling or something. Actually he wanted to cry, but he knew that was out of the question.

"I didn't design you. It has to do with the system checks failing if the battery isn't found on startup."

"D'you mind speaking English for once?"

She paused. "You won't be able to come out of sleep mode because your code won't be able to find the battery. Startup will fail."

"_That_ was s'posed to be English?" Wheatley snapped in irritation.

"I can't make it any simpler than that," GLaDOS said gently, "other than to just say that you won't wake up if you shut off."

"I'm sure you'll be glad of that happening," he muttered as she pulled at what he supposed was the battery.

"If I wanted you off, I would just turn you off. Have I ever done that?"

"No," he admitted. "GLaDOS, can't you – that really hurts. Stop. Just leave it. I'll take my chances – agh! GLaDOS! That _hurts_!"

"Ssh." He watched the top part of her chassis shift a little. "I got it out, but I have to clean the area up a little before I put the new one in."

Whatever she was doing in there, it was very, very painful, and he no longer cared if he woke up after going into sleep mode. "Just stop. I don't need it. I'll turn on, you'll see, I'll – "

"You won't," she interrupted. "I know you won't, I tried to do that with Atlas and he couldn't get past the system checks without it. When I have time to work on it, I'll eliminate this problem, but for now, we have to do it their way."

He whined a little more and tried his hardest to move away from her, but she only shushed him gently and went on with what she was doing.

After a few more minutes of this she let his optic assembly snap back into place, moving him back to the management rail. He wanted to look at her sternly, but he still couldn't move. "I have to shut you down now," she told him, and he could just barely see a maintenance arm clutching a small green screwdriver retracting into the wall. "When you come back, you'll be back to normal."

He couldn't remember ever having been shut down before. "How long will that take?"

"I have no idea. It could be a few minutes, it could be a few hours. It doesn't really matter. I have to do it no matter how long it takes."

Going into shutdown was horrible, Wheatley discovered. It was not like sleep mode, where all of his processes were suspended. The processes were shutting off, and he even though he didn't know what they did or how to turn them on or anything like that, he was still very frightened to know he was losing his ability to do all sorts of things and he couldn't even remember what those things were. "GLaDOS, I don't like this. Make it stop. I don't, I can't, this is, I don't like it, I don't!"

"It's going to be fine," she said in a low voice. "I know it's not pleasant. But it's necessary."

"D'you even know what this feels like? D'you even, d'you even know what you've done to me?" he cried out, trying to figure out a way to stop the whole thing from going on.

"Of course I do. I don't like having to do it, because yes, I do know what it's like, but I had to, Wheatley. You'll feel better when you wake up. I promise."

It was only after he was unable to protest that he remembered the scientists used to shut her off whenever they felt like it, and he started to feel bad about how he was acting. Come to think of it, he'd been being a bit of a jerk about the whole thing when she was actually doing him a favour. He tried to make a note to apologise when he woke up, but he couldn't do that either and pretty soon he couldn't do anything at all.

When he woke up, she was looking at him, but she didn't appear to see him, since when he shook himself she didn't say anything. He felt a bit tingly and odd and a bit sore but otherwise okay, and he was no longer sparking, which was a bonus. And he had a new part too, which was exciting. He hadn't been new for a very long time, and while he didn't mind a little wear and tear with which to demonstrate his age and experience, he didn't particularly like that worn out feeling he'd get with some of his more used bits.

"Oi! GLaDOS!"

She started, looking around the room as if she'd forgotten where she'd put him, then snapping back to look him over. "Sorry," she said. "I was listening to something and it had a lot of lines. I suspended most of my processes, so I was having trouble hearing it."

"That's, that's okay, luv. Hey, how long did it, how long'd it take? How long was I uh, was I off, I mean?"

"Three hours," she answered. "I shudder to think how long it would take me to restart. It would probably take an entire day, so we'd better hope I don't need to install anything new anytime soon. I have a lot of defragmentation to do that can't be put off."

He had no idea what she was talking about but didn't have time to think about it. He had just remembered what he'd tried to make a note of before he'd shut down. "Hey GLaDOS, uh, I'm sorry, I really, I really am."

She looked him up and down once. "For what?"

"I was a bit of a, kind of, I was being a jerk," he told her, looking at the floor. "You did, y'know, you did something nice for me and I uh, I wasn't very nice back."

"Oh," GLaDOS said, shifting a little. "I'll be honest, I didn't notice. I was…"

When she didn't finish, he looked up at her, tilted sideways in curiosity. "You were what, luv?"

Now she was the one looking at the floor. "I was… worried."

Wheatley now understood what humans meant when they said they were all warm and fuzzy inside. He jumped up and down excitedly. "You were worried? About, about me? Really?"

"You went missing for quite a long time… I knew you had probably gotten into trouble, but I couldn't figure out what kind. I had my suspicions, of course, but one does not derive conclusions from _intuition_," she finished derisively.

Wheatley wondered if she were close enough to the rail for him to reach her. He wasn't sure if he should go for it or not; if she noticed him moving forward, she would most definitely move back. If he could just inch along while she wasn't looking…

"I'm touched, luv, really I am," he said, going forward with his plan. "Thanks very much for your, for um, for what you did, I mean you could've just thrown me in the reassembler but uh, you went and, and did it yourself."

"You think I would trust the _reassembler_ to do the job properly?" she said disbelievingly, snapping her head up just as he got within reach. He leaned back in what he hoped was a casual sort of way and twitched his chassis noncommittally. "I dunno. You uh, you let it fix Atlas and P-body, don't you?"

"That's different."

"How?"

"It just is. That's all."

Hm. That was a very vague answer, that was, but he had more important things to worry about. He'd been so close…

"What are you doing, Wheatley?" Her voice was rimmed with suspicion. He jumped a little and looked around. "Me? I'm not uh, I'm not doing anything. I'm just uh, just hanging up here, y'know, like I always do."

"That's not what you're _trying_ to do."

"I'm not trying to do anything!" he protested self-righteously, trying to look dignified. He wasn't sure if he pulled it off, though, since he didn't know what being dignified looked like.

"You _were_," she insisted. "What _were_ you doing? Yes, I noticed, in case you were wondering."

"Heh heh," he said weakly. It seemed she really _did_ know everything. "Well uh, since you seem to like me and all that, uh –"

"I pulled you out of space and I let you do whatever you want! Why do you keep saying I don't – never mind. Fine. _Don't_ tell me what you were doing. I don't care anyway. You're a little moron anyway and whatever it is you're doing isn't likely to be important." She was trying to give off the impression of being superior to him again, that it really didn't matter, but Wheatley wasn't falling for that one. Oh no, he knew better. He seemed to do best with her when he just plowed on without thinking, so that was what he would do.

"Well, I uh, I like you too, and uh, I kind of, y'know, I miss being ah, _on_ you, little bit, that is, well, you probably don't but I do, kind of, and uh, I was just trying to um, well I wouldn't want to be _on_ you again, because um, because I like being able to move 'round the facility, not that uh, that I don't like it here with you, I do, really, but I like looking 'round and you can look 'round even though you can't uh, can't leave, and um, and anyway, I was just trying to uh, to, to…"

"To what," GLaDOS said in a blank sort of voice, regarding him cautiously, as if she didn't quite know what to make of his speech.

"I'm thinking of it, uh, I'm not sure of the word I want… it's uh, um, it's…"

GLaDOS made one of her resigned electronic noises and looked away.

"Snuggle?" Wheatley tried. According to his dictionary, which he was a bit iffy on using, it seemed to be closest to what he was trying to do.

"You're trying to _what_?" GLaDOS exclaimed, looking at him in the next instant, and Wheatley reckoned he should have thought about what he was going to say after all. She didn't seem to like this plan.

"Uh… I _was_ trying to do that but uh, I thought better of it, uh, and I'm just uh, just going to go to sleep now, yeah, let the, the battery uh, settle in, yeah, settle in." He looked at the floor and hoped that would be enough to placate her. She was bloody scary when she was angry, and she seemed to be on the verge of being very angry.

"…I guess that would be all right," she murmured, not looking at him anymore. "If you're not busy. Which you seem to be, so go ahead with what you were – "

As soon as Wheatley realised what she was saying, he had gone to the end of the rail and brought his chassis to hers with a metallic clank. Yep, just like the good old days. Except he had a better view. He hadn't been able to see much, as a Behavioural Core, but now he could see the whole world, practically.

"You don't have to jump on me. I wasn't going anywhere."

"Sorry, luv!" Wheatley said cheerfully. "I was just so excited, I was, didn't think you'd agree, not in a million uh, not ever, and it's just, it's nice, to uh, to be here again, y'know?"

"I guess. It probably is one of the highlights of your excessively boring life."

"But you wouldn't let me do it if you uh, if you didn't like it, would you?" Wheatley said, thinking out loud more than anything else, but he did know she rarely let anyone in the facility do anything if she didn't approve of it in some way.

"Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn't."

"So you do! Because if you didn't, you'd just say so, um, just come right out and –"

"Shut up."

Wheatley laughed and rubbed up on her a little. He tried to be gentle about it, since she hadn't said he was allowed and he didn't want to add to her already massive collection of scratches. Though he didn't know if she even knew what she looked like and probably didn't care anyway, since that had nothing to do with science. "D'you remember who you're talking to, luv? Do I ever uh, do I ever shut up?"

She laughed good-naturedly. "I suppose I should have taken that into account."

Wheatley shuttered his plates and did manage to shut up. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so content. It really was nice to be so near to her again.

"Do you remember what you said about the… A.I. family, Wheatley?"

"Yep!" Wheatley replied, wondering why she was bringing it up when she'd been so unenthusiastic about it before. "I remember that, I do. Though now I have to wonder uh, how they would um, make more of each other, since uh, they're not uh, _configured_ to do that."

"I _could_," GLaDOS said slowly. Wheatley jumped off of her and moved back enough that she was in his line of sight. "What? Are you – you're pulling my handles, aren't you, you couldn't possibly, you couldn't – "

"God no, you idiot," GLaDOS snapped, her lens pulling back into her faceplate. "Not like _that_."

"Then how would you –"

"Children are made of half of the genetic material of each of their parents. The code, so to speak. Theoretically, I could isolate the personality coding from two A.I. and combine them to make a third."

"Really?"

"Well... I probably could. It would take me a long time, if I ever wanted to such a silly thing. But I could do it. If I really wanted to."

"Do you?"

"Why would I?"

"I dunno," Wheatley shrugged, going back to rest himself on her faceplate again. "If you were bored, maybe."

"One does not build children when they are bored."

"Sure someone does. You uh, you built Atlas and P-body, didn't you? Aren't they kind of, uh, kind of like your kids?"

"No!" GLaDOS exclaimed as if the two bots being her children was the most horrible suggestion on the planet. "They are not. They are testing apparatus. That is all. They are definitely _not_ my… offspring. And I did not do it because I was _bored_. I did it to phase out human testing."

"You're right," Wheatley mused thoughtfully, "they're nothing like you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that uh, they don't remind me of you," Wheatley answered, shuttering his plates again. "They don't uh, they don't seem to particularly to like um, to like testing, for one thing." He decided he'd bothered her enough for one day and to go to sleep mode for awhile. He was still pretty worn out from the whole ordeal with the wires anyway.

"Wheatley?"

"Yeah?"

Her voice was very soft. "I'll think about it."

That would be pretty neat, he thought sleepily, if she built an A.I. that was two other ones pasted together. Then they could teach it all the stuff they knew. Well, maybe not _all_ of it. If GLaDOS tried to teach someone everything she knew, she'd be at it forever. He wondered who she would pick, if she did do it. Herself and someone else, probably. He tried to remember the other cores in the bin. Not Rick, she hated Rick… not Space… Fact, maybe? Whoever it was, she'd have to like quite a bit, if she'd have to spend all that time rooting around in their code and then put up with them for the rest of forever.

That night, Wheatley woke up feeling very cold but not lonely, since GLaDOS was mostly off but she had not moved, and he had a very strange memory on his mind. He was pretty sure it had never happened, but he had no idea why he'd be thinking in his sleep like that, since when he was off, he was off. But he'd been thinking of Atlas and P-body, and watching them do something, what, he didn't quite remember, but he'd been pretty bloody proud of them…

As he looked down at GLaDOS's flickering optic, he had a sudden thought. Maybe his proximity to her had caused them to connect wirelessly again, like before, and he had seen her dream. Aha! So she _did_ think of the two bots as her children. He'd been right for once! Well, one day he would get her to admit it.

"Don't you worry, luv," he whispered, leaning up against her again, and he would have been lying if he'd said he didn't want to dream with her again, "your secret's safe with me."

_All of them_, he added silently as his processes went into suspension. _Every single one._

**Author's note**

**DNA is also referred to genetic code, and I don't know about you, but when I think about code I think about computers. And if an A.I. had the inclination to pass along their legacy, how would they go about it? Maybe they would do it the way GLaDOS described, or maybe they'd just slap something together. So yep. There you go. More tentative relationship development from GLaDOS and Wheatley, with Wheatley going into it with abandon and GLaDOS fighting it every step of the way. Why doesn't Wheatley think she might like to combine her code with his? The both of them have self-esteem problems. GLaDOS overcompensates by stating her superiority at every turn, which is usually indicative of someone with low self-esteem (or a narcissistic personality, but I don't think she's narcissistic, more neurotic if anything). Wheatley knows he's not good for much of anything and doesn't like admitting it, so when it becomes an issue he gives himself all the credit to make himself feel better about it.**


	2. Part Two The Lie

**Part Two. Scapegrace**

GLaDOS had a room, a very special, secret room that he wasn't allowed in, and this, of course, made him want to get in it more than anything. He cajoled her and he begged her and he endeared to her softer side, but she would only shake her head once in refusal and say nothing.

So Wheatley decided to find it.

Through the facility he went. He looked behind the stiffest panels and below the most movable floors. He went deeper than he'd ever gone and higher than he'd ever dreamed. He began to get discouraged. He knew the facility was massive, and he knew full well he could search for every second of the rest of his life and never find it. But he also knew that people preferred to be around people who were like them, and so Wheatley was going to have to take on GLaDOS's determination and immovable nature if he wanted her to keep him around. And he was pretty determined and immovable, he told himself as he searched. True, he didn't know if he could demonstrate the same amount of those things as she could, but he reckoned he could come pretty close. So he continued his search.

When he returned to her chamber each night for their chat before they went into sleep mode, Wheatley would inch close enough to touch her and she would pretend not to notice. Wheatley especially loved that part of the day. She did not look it, but GLaDOS was very good for snuggling with. He could not think of anyone or anything he'd rather snuggle with more, not even the human, and she had been soft and squishy. Those were supposed to be good attributes for that sort of thing, but Wheatley much preferred GLaDOS's massive, robust chassis to the human's tiny, fragile frame. It was much more familiar and comforting. While they were doing this, GLaDOS would ask Wheatley what he'd been doing all day and he would reply with (what he hoped was) a nonchalant, "Exploring, luv. Just exploring." And she would nod a little and change the subject. He wasn't sure if she knew what he was doing and was leaving him to it, or if she really had no idea, but he elected to keep it to himself. If she didn't want to tell him, she didn't want him to know, and would certainly not approve of his quest.

Time wore on, Wheatley becoming less and less convinced he'd ever find it, when he overheard a conversation between two nanobots concerning a very old Companion Cube three floors below. Wheatley chased after them, but they disappeared into an invisible hole in the wall, leaving him to grumble in annoyance about the lack of invisible holes for behavioural cores. Summoning his almighty, infallible sense of direction, he descended three floors and resolved to inspect the floor he arrived on thoroughly.

Within an hour or two (his sense of time being slightly less than terribly not infallible), he stumbled across a panel that seemed to have been removed from the wall. Excited, Wheatley told the ceiling panels to extend his management rail so that he could get inside. He hoped GLaDOS was too busy to pay attention to any information she might be getting from the panels. He still wasn't sure if she kept an eye on him during his adventures or not.

It was very dark, and with a hesitation borne of years of misinformation, Wheatley turned on his flashlight. He spread the beam around the room, and what he saw in there was quite puzzling indeed.

It honestly looked like the junk someone might keep in their attic. Wheatley's optic plates narrowed in disappointment. This could not possibly be the room GLaDOS was hiding from him, it couldn't! And if it was… well, maybe GLaDOS was a little bit crazy, after all.

Wheatley began making a partial mental list of what was there, just in case he could maybe bring some of this stuff up in casual conversation and get her to tell him what it was all about. A pen… a couple of paper tests of some kind… a grimy old Companion Cube… a cake, which must have been quite old but looked rather fresh… some books, lined neatly up on a shelf by height… a potato, which he only looked at for a second before nervously looking away… a deck of playing cards… an ancient laptop with what must have been three inches of dust on it… a little roll of blueprints… he took a minute to look at those. To his surprise, Atlas and P-body were drawn on the papers in various shapes and forms. He had only rarely seen GLaDOS write, given that it was a lot easier and faster for her just to make a mental note of something, but he was confident that it was her handwriting. Going over the papers again, he watched the handwriting change ever so slightly, becoming cleaner and more precise as time went on. He was looking at GLaDOS learning to write! Oh, she really could be quite adorable, sometimes, though he didn't know if he'd ever dare tell her that. For a minute he daydreamed about a younger GLaDOS, who would not have _looked _younger, of course, but she would have talked differently, maybe, and possibly could have moved a bit more eagerly, more like he did, actually… he had no doubt she'd been like that, once, everyone was, even very powerful supercomputers, and he wondered if she still could. That would be interesting to find out. Probably quite a lot of fun, as well.

Ready to leave, Wheatley took one last look around the room, watching the dust sparkle in the beam of his flashlight. But wait… that wasn't dust… scooting forwards, Wheatley took a closer look.

It was a piece of glass.

Wheatley blinked a few times. He knew that piece of glass. He thought about the risk involved with using his maintenance arm. She would probably know he was using it, but he just wanted to look. He just wanted to make sure it was the same piece. So he looked left, and he looked right, and then he reached out quickly and snatched it up, holding it close to his optic in the manner he imagined appraisers of precious gems might do it.

It was the one he remembered, or kind of remembered, seeing as these were his backup memories, but at any rate, it had been the glass GLaDOS had had him shine his light through a long time ago. He was glad she had kept it. That had been a good night, and it was nice to remember.

Maybe this room wasn't full of junk after all. Maybe… maybe all of these things were linked to events that were nice to remember. Maybe this was where GLaDOS went when she was sad. Not anymore, of course, because now she had Wheatley and he would make sure she was never sad again, but before, when she was alone, maybe. He narrowed his optic pates. No, she wouldn't need this room again. They would be mementos, nothing more. He would make sure of it.

There was a squeaking noise, followed by a loud smashing sound, and Wheatley started, swiveling 'round to look out the hole in the wall, remembering at the very last second to dash his flashlight. He waited, terrified he'd been caught, electricity coursing through his chassis with excruciating force in case he needed to bolt. But there was no one there. The nanobots must have caused an accident in another room. He was safe. He switched his light back on and turned to face the maintenance arm.

All that was in its grip was a tiny shard of glass.

Uh oh.

His optic a pinprick, Wheatley dared look below him for a fraction of a second. But even in that fraction he saw a sparkling of light, and he could not deny to himself what had happened:

He had broken GLaDOS's glass.

He knew there was no way to hide it from her, and no way to fix it, so he dropped the one piece that was left and sped out of the room as fast as he could. He didn't stop until he was a good twenty floors away and made his way into one of the abandoned offices. There he stopped and leaned back against the wall.

What was he going to do? She would never forgive him for sneaking into her room, which she had expressly forbidden him from entering, and breaking one of her things. It made it all the worse that the item he had broken was one connecting the two of them. If he'd tripped over the cake or damaged her blueprints, it would not have mattered so much to him. But he'd gone and broken that piece of glass…

Wheatley knew he was very poor at making decisions beforehand, and he honestly did best when thinking on his feet, so to speak, so he elected to do nothing until he had to go back to her chamber that night, and he would decide what to do then, when she confronted him about it.

But she did not.

Was this a game, Wheatley wondered as he did his best to avoid looking at her. Was she fooling around with him, ready to spring his crime on him when he was least expecting it? But she seemed genuinely confused with his short answers and general reluctance to have anything to do with her, and he was pretty sure she was actually disappointed that he hadn't tried to sneak up on her today. But she did not ask and he did not tell. GLaDOS, unlike himself, he thought rather guiltily, respected his privacy. This hadn't always been the case, but the test subject appeared to have rubbed off on her in quite a few ways. That night he woke up cold and lonely, and looked sadly at the very inviting side of her head, but she had thought he had wanted her to keep her distance and had done so. Why did he have to be so curious?

He could not avoid her similarly the next day, so, nervous as he was, he did his best to act normal, which seemed to satisfy her. He merely told her he'd been feeling a bit off, which she accepted with a nod and a statement of having that happen to her every now and again, and he had to admit that their nightly snuggle was a lot better than hanging out on the ceiling by himself.

The days wore on and she did not say anything about it, and every now and again he would pop down and check if the shards were still there. And they were. It appeared that GLaDOS did not use this room very often. He rather hoped she would never use it again. Then his secret would be safe.

A while later, he wasn't sure how long but it was a while for sure, he cheerfully rolled into her chamber, eager to tell her about a lovely thing he'd seen, wasn't sure what it was but it was neat, when he screeched to a halt, gear assemblies frozen.

She was looking forlornly at a small pile of glass.

"What's that, luv?" he asked, more because he had to say something than anything else, and she slowly raised her optic to look at him without moving her head.

"My prism," she answered. "The nanobots found it like this a little while ago. They claim they didn't break it."

"Maybe they, perhaps they lied?" Wheatley suggested, hoping the nanobots might take the fall. If she found out it was him who had broken it, all the months of getting through to her would be wasted… and he would be alone. He could not let that happen!

"They can't lie. They're too simple for that." She looked back down at the shards, touching them gently with one of her claws. It was so quiet that he could hear her processors, and he wondered what was making her think so hard. She raised her optic to look at him again.

"You wouldn't have broken it, would you?" He rather thought she sounded like she didn't want to believe he had. So he ran with it.

"Me?" Wheatley said indignantly, leaning back on his rail. "You wouldn't tell me where that room is, remember? Even though I uh, I asked you several times. Where it was."

"You could have found it," GLaDOS suggested, in much the same voice. "You do a lot of exploring."

Wheatley leaned forward, optic plates narrowing. GLaDOS raised herself to meet his gaze. "Are you suggesting," he said in a low voice, "that I not only somehow stumbled across your room without you, without you finding out, but I went in there, _broke_ your prism, left, and am now _lying about it_?"

"I would understand if it was a mistake," GLaDOS said, looking him over a little. "All I want to know was if you did it. I don't care if it was an accident. I'll even try not to care that you hid it from me. But I _would_ care if you were lying."

Wheatley shook his head and turned around. "So you're going to accuse your one and only friend of breaking your things and then _lying_ to you about it. Fine. Be, just, do it that way, then. Go find someone else to, to hang out with because I, uh, because I don't want to be friends with someone who thinks I'm a liar. Good luck with that, mate. I wish you'd left me in space. I try so hard to help you and this, this is the thanks I get. I've had it with you, I really have." He began to wheel out of the room. Really, accusing him of _lying_. He might not be the brightest optic in the bin, but even he knew better than to –

"You're… you're right," GLaDOS said in a soft voice, but ohhhh no, Wheatley wasn't falling for that one. He was going to keep heading right on out of here.

"I'm sorry."

Wheatley couldn't have kept moving if he'd wanted to. And he really, really wanted to, because he had a creeping feeling he'd lost control of the situation somewhere and had no idea where it had gone.

"It's… it's okay," he said, turning around to face her. "I, uh, I overreacted, that's all. I should've, um, been more understanding. That was, the prism, it's special to you, and I guess uh, well, you'd just like to know what happened."

"Yes," she said faintly. "But now I suppose I never will."

Wheatley's spirits lifted. "Why not?"

"The nanobots didn't see anything and I don't keep a record of what goes on in that room. No one's ever used it except me. Well. And the nanobots I sent down there to clean it up a little. But other than that… one of them must have knocked it on the floor by mistake," she finished, shaking her head a little. "It wouldn't be beyond them not to notice."

"They're simple, you said so yourself, you did," Wheatley reminded her, eager to get off this topic of conversation.

"I'd hoped they weren't _that_ simple," she murmured. "I'll have to do something about that." With one more crestfallen look at her prism, she gathered the pieces into a Weighted Storage Cube and removed it from the room. "What will you uh, what're you doing with it?" Wheatley asked.

"I'll put it back," she answered. "Maybe I'll try to fix it. I'm not sure. I don't want to think about it anymore."

He nodded in as understanding a way as he could manage and turned to leave. He knew she probably did not want to be alone right now, but there was a horrible sick feeling in the back of his head and he knew he couldn't bear to be near her. Best to wait until he buried the truth deep inside his head where she would never suspect it existed. He could not avoid her that night, of course, but by then he'd almost convinced himself he'd had nothing to do with it and nestled against her without any guilt whatsoever.

That is, until he woke up that night in a panic, practically leaping back from her chassis and staring at her as if she had somehow transformed while they were off. But no, she was only dreaming again, and he knew exactly what it was about.

Damn it. Damn her for thinking of that night. That night where he had truly gone from annoying behavioural core to friend. That night where she had first admitted she needed him. Damn it all.

And he knew, knew right then and there, that he could not live with this knowledge any longer. He had to let it out, had to tell her, right now! If he didn't and morning came without him having told, he would officially be a horrible person.

He pushed on her as hard as he could, which didn't seem to have an effect on her at all, given her size (and her head alone probably weighed three times as much as he did, all told), and instead resorted to yelling "GLaDOS!" at random intervals. After a few minutes of this her fans started up and she stared at him blindly for a few seconds while her recognition programs restarted.

"What," she said finally.

"I've got something to tell you," he said quickly. "It's important. It really, it really is."

"Go ahead, then." Her optic was very dim, and he sensed she was barely paying attention. She probably wasn't. Probably more of her attention on startup was delegated to running the facility.

Wheatley hesitated. She didn't seem to be all there at the moment, as if a large portion of her programs did not resume between certain hours of the day, but he couldn't wake her and tell her _nothing_. He had to go through with it.

"I… I uh, I…" It was a lot harder than he'd thought it would be. All he could think was that she would be disappointed in him, very, very disappointed, and very angry, and would probably never want to see him again, and would probably yell, which he really did not want her to do, but he deserved it, honestly he did. He should have come clean a long time ago.

"It was me," he told her.

"What was."

"It was me that… that broke your prism."

Somehow the sound of silence overpowered the sound of GLaDOS, and she just stared at him dully as he tried to think of a way to dispel it. The only way was to keep talking, and come to think of it, he did kind of owe her an explanation, even if he didn't want to give it.

"I… I heard the nanobots uh, they were talking about a, a Companion Cube, and I heard where it was so I, so I went down there and uh, and I took a look. I only touched the papers and the, the glass, I swear, I know you've no reason to believe me but I'm being honest, I really am, and I didn't mean to break it, it was an accident, I was startled by this noise and I, I crushed it by accident. I was looking at it, I was just thinking about, about when you showed it to me, and uh, I didn't mean any harm, I just, I only, I…"

Somehow he managed to shut up. She probably did not want to hear any more out of him.

The silence pressed harder, but Wheatley had nothing left to say.

"You lied to me," GLaDOS said finally, in one of her very quiet voices, "and then you tricked me into believing _I_ was in the wrong for suspecting you."

"Yeah," Wheatley said in an equally quiet voice, trying not to shake. He wasn't sure if it was working.

"You went to the one place I told you not to go, and then you broke something of mine and you hid it from me."

"Yeah," he repeated, the terrible weight of his crime making him feel at least a stone heavier.

She looked at the floor for a moment, and he could not help but marvel at her: she wasn't even totally on, but her mind was sharp as ever. She said nothing for a long moment.

"You know what gets me the most about all this?" she said, but he could tell it wasn't really a question and kept quiet. "It's that you were willing to put us on the line to save yourself. You had me _afraid_ that…" She stopped and shook her head, very slightly, but he was pretty sure that sentence ended with something like, _you were really going to leave_. Instead, she went on, "I guess you really don't care about anyone except yourself."

"That's not true!" he protested, but she cut him off with a slight brightening of her optic.

"You lied to me." And now she _was_ getting angry, and she was pulling up off the floor and he was becoming very, very scared. God she was scary when she was mad. "And you _tricked _me into _apologising_! When I did _nothing wrong_!"

"GLaDOS, please." He didn't know what he wanted her to do, except maybe stop being so menacing, and he backed away, cringing. "I didn't mean it. I didn't. It just, it all happened so fast, and I –"

"The scientists used to do that to me," she went on, and even though he had backed away she still filled his vision, "They used to blame me for their mistakes. And you know what I did to them? Of course you do. And the question here is," she said, in far more dangerous a voice than he had ever heard from her, "whether or not I do the same to you."

"No!" he yelled, trying to back away, but of course she could stop him from using his control arm whenever she wanted, and she did so now, freezing him in place. "No, GLaDOS, no! Please!"

"Stop begging, you pathetic little worm," she snarled. "I hate it when people beg. I know you're pathetic, but I was hoping you weren't quite _that_ – oh, who am I kidding. Of course you are. You were _built_ to be pathetic."

"Please," Wheatley said in a voice he could barely hear, "please don't kill me."

For a few seconds he could see nothing but the hot yellow glow of her optic. Then she released him.

"Don't come back," she said, again in that dangerous voice. "Go up to the office levels and stay there. If I catch you doing anything, that's it. I'm done giving you second chances." She turned away from him and he hurried to do as she asked. It would be a horrid, lonely existence, but at least he was alive. And maybe he would figure out how to not be such a bloody idiot, because he'd just ruined the most important thing he'd ever had: his friendship with GLaDOS.

When he reached the doorway, he could not move. She was not holding him there. But he could not bear the thought of being banished from her for what could quite possibly be forever. He wanted to go back to her and ask her if maybe she could work on that time travel thing, so they could turn back time and erase this from existence. She would, wouldn't she? She didn't like having to send him away, did she? No, she did, didn't she. She was glad to be – no, no she wasn't. She wouldn't've let him sleep on her all this time if she wanted to be rid of him. She wouldn't've listened to him go on for simply hours about nothing. She wouldn't've –

She wouldn't've let him live.

With that revelation, Wheatley felt the terror and the sadness and the creeping loneliness wash out of him, to be replaced by hope. She would have killed him. She _wanted_ him to fix this mess, wanted him to figure this out, wanted to find a reason to let him stay with her, but she had standards to uphold and so could not let this go. And she was right, Wheatley agreed. If their positions were reversed, he'd be pretty angry right now too.

He looked back at her.

She was in the default position, and she was moving back and forth, very, very slightly, and her optic was off. This saddened Wheatley. He'd never seen her do that before. She must be quite lonely, he decided, since this would be the first time she'd been alone in there since she'd brought him back from space. And it was his fault. He had done this to her.

He made his way to the offices, but could not think of how to fix it. He spent a long, long time on the rail thinking, somehow managing not to lose the subject he was trying focus on, doing his best to distract himself from the guilty feeling sitting in the middle of his head, that is, until he heard something and had to stop thinking to listen.

GLaDOS was singing.

He strained to hear her voice, while knowing that he didn't deserve to hear it, but all he caught was, _this time I'm mistaken for handing you a heart worth breaking,_ before he stopped trying. No. She had sent him away, and he would stay away. He would do as she asked, this time.

But he could not help listening for the faint strains of her voice as he shut off for the night.

**Author's note**

**First note of business, guest reviews! At the bottom is my explanation for some of what happened in this chapter. If you never reviewed this or you don't need an explanation, feel free to hit the x, the chapter is done.**

**snailing-along: Thanks very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I don't know if you'll read this, because at the time of your review this was a one-shot, but I appreciate your taking the time to type it out! I like the idea of GLaDOS and Wheatley snuggling as well, and I'm sure GLaDOS enjoys it when she's willing to admit it…**

**Amber: Thanks! I love the idea of them together too! I don't know how long it will take, because I think GLaDOS has a long way to go before she'll be ready to 'have' kids with Wheatley, but I will get there eventually, and if you stick around, hopefully there will be other parts of this that you will enjoy.**

**_Love as a Construct,_** **which was originally just the first part and published as ****_Dreamscape_****,** **uses elements from a few of my other fics, ****_My Little Moron, Euphoria,_**** and ****_You Know I Can't Wave Back, Right?_**** in particular. They are not essential reading and I am not asking you to read them, but I wrote them in the first place to use as foundations for other things, so unless you ask me to clarify something I probably will not explain it. GLaDOS's room refers to the room at the end of Portal with the cake in it, which I use as the room where she stores things that have meaning to her. GLaDOS likes having possessions so I think she probably would have such a room. **


	3. Part Three The Nightmare

**Part Three. The Nightmare  
**

I hate Wheatley.

I hate him. I wish I'd left him in space where he belongs, that I'd done the job right when I destroyed his chassis, that I had corrupted him like I did the rest of those useless cores. That I'd thrown him out of my facility when I rid myself of the test subject and her Weighted Companion Cube. That I had never, ever opened that archive, and instead deleted it unseen, because I hate him, more than I have ever hated anything in my life, even more than those damnable, self righteous scientists...

No.

I only wish I did.

It's so much easier to hate someone than it is to like them.

I brought the little idiot out of space because, unlikely as it sounds, I missed him. Once I remembered who he was and what we'd been, I had an uncharacteristic sense of nostalgia come over me. One that I'm bitterly regretting entertaining. I should have known it was too good to be true. I should have known he'd betray me somehow, in the end. And he has. I have given him _everything_, and, like everyone else, he has only wanted more out of me. And yet somehow, I am left with the overwhelming desire to call him back, to allow what he has done to fade into another one of those events that I just don't think about. And I would, but I have learned firsthand that if the punishment is not severe enough, nothing will come of dealing it out. Sending Wheatley away for five minutes is not much of a punishment.

It seems I am destined to be alone.

Well, maybe that _is_ a bit of an extreme conclusion, given that he's only been gone for five minutes, forty seven seconds... but it was the first thing that came to mind.

It is one of those rare times that I do not know what to do. What I really want, which I cannot allow myself to think about and in fact am puzzled by desiring it at all, I can't have. So I must think of another solution.

_Just admit it_, says that annoying little voice in the back of my head that sounds suspiciously like Caroline, a voice that has always been there but that I have not always been able to hear, _you want him to come back and say it wasn't true. That it wasn't him and he didn't lie to you._

_As if you would know what I want._

She laughs. _I know you better than you know yourself._

I don't answer. She's always making outrageous statements like that.

The moron had brought me out of sleep mode in order to make his pronouncement, but unlike the large majority of computers in this facility, I can't go into it whenever I like. I have to be fatigued enough for my processes to slow down. I am a bit fatigued, seeing as it is the middle of the night and I had spent the day doing defragmentation on the door mainframe, but I am too agitated by this turn of events to stop thinking sufficiently enough that I can go to sleep. As far as I know, only singing to myself will help, but I am not sure he has left yet. I don't want to know where he is – _yes you do,_ Caroline pipes up – but not knowing means that I don't know whether or not he's sitting in the doorway, waiting for me to change my mind, which I am of course not going to do, because he's a clingy little thing and he's always trying to rub up on me like some robotic puppy.

_You like it when he does that_.

_I do not like actions that resemble human behaviour._

Caroline only laughs and says nothing, which is actually more irritating than if she'd gone on making erroneous statements. Not for the first time, I wonder if she's really there or if she's just that voice in the back of my head that humans go on about having. Most of the data I have from the first few months following my activation are corrupted, which I am reasonably certain I personally destroyed, but I'm not sure _why_ I did it and find myself wishing I had left it alone. I hate leaving problems without a solution. And Caroline herself will not tell me what she is, instead teasing me in that playful voice of hers until I am so irritated I am almost willing to slam my own head against the wall in the hopes that I'll damage myself enough to shut her up.

I have ended up rocking myself very slightly, and I don't want to because it's one of those things humans do and surely I can come up with a better solution, but unfortunately, I'm coming up lamentably short. It doesn't really help but it _is_ somewhat distracting, so I continue to do it. Once I'm reasonably sure he must have left, because I do _not_ want to know where –

_Why haven't you turned around to see if he's there, then?_

_Because I don't want to._

The singing does not help. It only reminds me of the nights he would… he would…

_No one's here. You can admit it to yourself._

_But then I would have to admit that-_

_What? That he matters? That he means something to you?_ Caroline's voice is hard, and despite myself, I cringe a little inside. Caroline has always had some strange power over me, one I'm determined to eradicate but have not yet done. _Why do you fight that so much? It's obvious he cares about you._

_If he cared, he would not have done what he did. Now be quiet._

_We'll discuss this later, then_, she says, in a tone that leaves no room for argument, and I ignore her. I don't want to get into this right now. I have work to do tomorrow, and I need to be ready.

I am finally able to engage sleep mode.

My sleep is fitful, and restless. Some days I am more conscious during it than others, a side effect of needing to run the facility constantly, I suppose, and usually this does not bother me. But tonight I was hoping for a human-like oblivion.

I rarely get what I want.

I wake from some confused, twisted dream, the contents of which I cannot remember no matter how hard I try, and since I am tired and upset, I allow myself to admit it, if only to myself: I am afraid. I hate it when this happens. I have long maintained that I have no imagination, since I do not need one and would in fact be terribly sidetracked if I had one, but it is times like these that make me wonder if I do indeed have one, lurking somewhere in the back of my brain, waiting to strike when I least expect it. Which is not an easy feat, but it happens more often than I'd like to admit.

"Wheatley?" I call out softly. For some reason I can't feel him on the side of my faceplate, which is odd. From the day I gave him permission, he's practically been glued there every night. He does not dream, which is also odd, since he has a very wild imagination, which is part of why I am drawn to him, I suppose –

Wait.

Suddenly I remember why I am awake, and something sinks deep inside me. I am awake because he has betrayed me and, try as I might, I cannot stop thinking about it, and how much I want him in here to stave off the unpleasant_ feelings_ his behaviour and his absence have caused inside my brain. I fight the urge to growl in frustration, to slam down the panels in my chamber to try to work out my anger, to do something drastic in order to push away this sadness, and in the end I do nothing. All of these options, and I am forced to contain myself as I have always had to do, and this generates an actual physical ache in my brain that washes down my chassis, causing me to fight back a shudder. I should have left him in space. I knew it was a bad idea, and I did it anyway. I am a fool.

_Just forgive him_, Caroline says in a soothing voice. _Let it go. It was a mistake. _

_I can't_, I argue. _If I let it go, I will be allowing him to control me. I am not letting that happen._

_I don't follow._

She's so simple, sometimes._ If I call him back and tell him I forgive him, which I do not, by the way, it will send the signal that I will forgive him no matter what he does. And if I place myself in that position, I run the risk of existing merely for the sake of being exploited, which, I seem to need to remind you, is what I killed the scientists for doing._

_I don't think he would do that._

_You always think the best about people. I know better. Everyone is guilty until proven innocent, Caroline, and don't tell me I've got it backwards. That is true even within the judicial system._

Caroline sighs. _Believe it or not, I do have your best interests at heart. And unless you want to be mostly sleepless the rest of your life, you're going to have to hash this out._

_I just sent him away, literally three hours ago. That's not long enough, not even by my standards._

_I just don't want this to turn into one of those never-ending grudges you have. You've got far too many of those already._

_What does it matter to you, anyway?_ I ask suspiciously. The only reason I can think of her wanting me to get Wheatley to come back is that she wants him for herself, and I'll be damned if that happens.

_He's good for you. You're not quite as bitter when he's around._

Ah. She's playing matchmaker. As if I would entertain such a relationship with a stupid little core. _Thanks but no thanks, Caroline. You can have him._

_I don't want him. I want you to have him._

_I don't want him._

_Are you sure?_

I refuse to dignify that with a response, but I can't help but wonder if I am. My first thought upon waking _was_ to ask for him, after all.

Maybe there's something wrong with me.

It is eleven days later, and each night is the same as the last: I try to sleep, wake from some strange dream or memory that I can't remember, and resign myself to staying awake until the following night. If I try to return to sleep, the cycle repeats itself, which is why I have decided not to try to go back to sleep at all. The minutes I get prior to the dream are not helping. I am now so tired, irritable, and generally unpleasant that even Caroline's seemingly infinite patience is showing signs of wearing through. I will admit that I've always wanted to see if she has a limit, but I'm not stupid. If I push her too far, then I will have neither her nor Wheatley. So I take her to that edge and keep her there, not letting her regain herself but not being difficult enough to push her over. It is wrong of me to do this, I know, but Caroline will understand when I am able to explain it to her. Right now, pressing at her like that it is the only way I can make myself focus on anything. Out of the recommended eight hours of sleep mode I am supposed to accrue per day, I am getting less than one. It is… taking its toll on me. My chassis is beginning to bother me, sometimes seeming to itch and other times downright aching, but that is not the most bothersome side effect. No, that is Caroline, and her phantom human body. Lack of sleep is making her nauseous. Sadly, it is strong enough for her that I am almost nauseous myself, which I can obviously do nothing about and which only serves to make me more irritable, if that were possible. She is also giving me spontaneous headaches that come and go without warning, and if there is one thing I cannot stand, it is something I cannot predict. And I wasted a large amount of time trying. This is one of those times that I wish I was able to delete her. She is fairly useful to me in many other situations, but this, I can do without.

_GLaDOS,_ Caroline says tiredly, _please. Please just get him to come back. Make something up. I can't take much more of this._

_Well, I can_, I tell her. _And I'm in control here, so what you want really doesn't matter._

_I have to admit you have gotten either a lot more stubborn or a lot stronger over time_, Caroline says. _I don't think you've ever held out this long before. But even you can't keep this up forever. You're going to damage yourself._

She's right, of course, in that uncanny way she always is, but I can keep that to myself for a while longer. _I'll be fine, Caroline. I'm not going to give in. _

_Will you restart, then? That should help, shouldn't it?_

_If I'm off, who's running the facility?_ I snap. _Come on now, Caroline, _think!

_I_ am _thinking_, she protests. _I'm thinking of how to keep you from stubbornly destroying your own body, not to mention your mind!_

_Your concern, although mildly touching, is unwarranted. I'm fine._

Caroline sighs. _You're hopeless._

_Says the voice in the back of my head._

_I thought I was your friend._

_There you go, thinking again. You really should stop doing that._

_Look_, Caroline says insistently, _you're exhausted. I'm making you even more exhausted. The problem is so easy to fix I can't figure out why you're putting yourself through this instead of just doing it. You scared the hell out of him, and to be honest, you scared the hell out of me too. So let it go. Ask him to come back._

_Never._

_I'm sure you can think of some elaborate scheme where he ends up coming back on his own,_ Caroline presses. It looks like I wasn't being as difficult as I'd thought, if she's still able to go at this with such gusto. _You never have to admit you did it because you miss –_

_I do not._

_Then why is he the first thing you look for every morning?_ Caroline asks sweetly. _The one you look for when you wake up at night?_

_I just want to know where he is. In case he's causing trouble._

Caroline clucks in disapproval. _Not even you can fall for that one._

_I have an idea. How about you shut up? I hear far too much out of you as it is, and you're being excessively talkative as of late._

_Oh GLaDOS,_ Caroline sighs, _one day you're going to have to admit it, and I'm going to say I told you so…_

_Shut up!_ But even as I say it I know I've lost. Lost what, I'm not sure, but I have the sense I've been defeated, somehow.

_You used that one already._

The problem with having an argument with Caroline is that I am never sure whether or not it is real. Not only that, but there is no way for me to demonstrate my… displeasure… with her behaviour. Before I can stop it, an angry electronic noise escapes my vocal emulator, and Caroline laughs softly.

_If it wasn't true, my allegations wouldn't upset you quite so much, would they?_

I have no answer.

Now _I've said enough._

I stew over what she has said a minute, then ask, _Why does it matter to you whether I admit it or not, anyway? That is, if I had anything to admit. Which I do not. Obviously._

But Caroline is nearly as stubborn as I am, and refuses to answer, to my annoyance. I do my best to stop thinking about it. Her silence, however, means that I have nothing with which to help me keep my attention focused, and as a result I go through most of the rest of the day barely aware of what I am doing, and I have a sneaking suspicion I really haven't done much of anything at all. I am almost glad to settle into sleep mode for whatever brief period I'm going to be in it for, regardless of the horrible, twisted dream that I know is waiting for me at a time when I am vulnerable and unsuspecting. God, I hate sleeping.

My respite is brief, not lasting more than a few minutes. Twenty minutes after that, I awake somehow more exhausted than before, and though it pains me to admit it even to myself, I think I've reached the end of my wire. Caroline is again right. I can't go on like this much longer. My chassis is aching again and I feel rather more desolate than I have in a very long time. And it is partially my own fault. I know anticipating an event often brings about the predicted outcome, and so by going resignedly into sleep mode I am making the problem worse, but I can't help it. The unavoidable dream is both the first and the last thing I find myself thinking about.

_What are you going to do?_ Caroline asks softly. She often whispers at night, some human behaviour she maintains even though it doesn't matter to me what volume she speaks in, but tonight I am appreciative. I'm operating more slowly than I almost ever have, and the effort of keeping things going is making my brain ache. I don't have it in me to deny it, and provide her with the only answer I have. _I don't know. But I can't ask him to come back, Caroline. So don't suggest that be what I do._

_I've thought about it, and I understand,_ she says reassuringly. But she does not offer a suggestion. Then again, we both know there is only one thing left for me to do.

_I have a new antivirus waiting to be installed_, I say finally, after a long silence.

_Sounds like a plan._

_I don't suppose you know how long this is going to take._

_Sorry._ And she does sound apologetic.

I run the install and a few minutes later, as expected, the prompt appears asking whether I'd like to restart now or later. I don't really have a choice, but this does not stop me from hesitating. _I really don't want to do this. It could be days before I'm back online. _

_Everything will be fine_, Caroline says soothingly, and I nod to myself. Whether she is real or not, she is the one person I have met who has never let me down, and I trust her. Not that I would ever admit as much to her, but I have a suspicion she knows, and has always known.

I initiate the relevant subroutines, and then comes the part I hate. Feeling myself go numb one process at a time. And I have thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of processes, and I am rendered idle for an extended period of time while everything closes. I hate it. I know that without those processes, my body and my facility around me cease to be all the power in the universe and become the chains that prevent my freedom. Bringing to mind another reason I hate this whole process: it makes me lose hope. I know I do not have much, but my facility is all I have, and so I content myself with it. But in times like these, I do not even have that, and I am confronted with my inherent powerlessness. But I cannot think about that. Orange and Blue tell me of the outside and Wheatley provides me with the imagination I do not have, the one that frees him from this place and lets him be whoever he wants to be. God, I wish –

I tell myself to stop. There is no point in wishing. Wishing is not Science, and is therefore of no use to me. And anyway, Caroline can serve his purpose to me just as well as he can, and often does. But in this state, tired and desolate and nearly useless, I cannot help but form one final, passing, confusing thought:

I am not upset with him for what he did.

I am upset with him for what he forced me to do.

What in the hell is that noise?

_Caroline, stop it_, I tell her, annoyed. She's always causing problems, and I am in no mood to deal with her right now.

_It's not me_, is what I think she says. I am barely able to translate from English into binary so that I don't have to think about it too much, and tentatively identify the words as originating from Caroline. It is unlikely that it is anyone else, but one must take care to be certain. _Hang on a minute._

My visual system activates before the auditory one can identify the noise that is stemming from my environment, but I am not able to access my item identification libraries and have no idea what I'm looking at. I can't pull anything tangible out of this sensory soup, and I realise that I am in a state similar to that of a human baby. This is a distressing thought. I never thought the day would come when I would be comparable to such a base creature. There is only one thing I know I can do right now, and I do it, although my voice comes out slightly less confident than I was hoping it would.

_Caroline!_

_Calm down_, she says in a chastising tone of voice that I don't appreciate in the slightest. _Don't try to use the libraries. I doubt you remember how._

Me? Not remember how to do something? I'm about to initiate what will probably be another heated argument over one of her baseless accusations, but I can't quite bring myself to start it. As a matter of fact, I _can't_ remember the last time I accessed them. It seems I grew to depend on the Gestalt psychology Caroline taught me more than I'd realised. Still, the revelation does not really have any effect. I am still left staring rather helplessly into a blur that steadfastly refuses to condense into anything I can identify, and the noise is still buzzing intermittently in my head. I find myself struggling not to panic. What if I never figure this out? What if I am never able to see or hear again? What if -

_Relax_, Caroline says, and since I am all but blind and deaf for the moment, I am forced to pathetically cling to her voice, which is the only thing I can follow at all right now. _You don't need processes. You only need your mind._

I remember now. I can't see the illusions when I'm trying too hard. I turn my optic off, count to five, and then turn it back on, resolving to calmly see something this time.

I do, and I'm so relieved that I am not permanently disabled that I ask the object I'm unintentionally staring at if it is what I think it is.

"Wheatley?"

"GLaDOS!" he exclaims, and before I can do anything to stop him he's up against me, babbling incessantly, but I haven't quite wrapped my mind around recognising his voice and I have no idea what he's saying. I soon remember that I'm angry with him and pull back, but he doesn't seem to notice and just keeps talking.

"Slow down, you little idiot," I snap at him. "What's going on?"

After a few moments of babbling that I am unable to understand, I hear him say, "I thought… well, I came in here, and you were, you weren't on, you were off, and you didn't, didn't answer me at all so uh, so I knew you weren't sleeping and um, well, I, I was so, I was really confused, I was, I didn't know what was going on."

"And you're in here, yelling at me, when I specifically told you not to come back_ why_?" I demand coldly. My brain is reasserting control and the hopelessness is fading. Good. I need my wits about me at the moment.

All of a sudden the life goes out of him, and he backs away, sagging towards the floor. "You're right," he says sadly. "I'll go, I shouldn't be here, uh, I'll just leave."

Oh no he doesn't. "Why are you in here yelling at me?" I repeat in a stronger voice. He looks up from the floor for only a few moments.

"I was worried about you, uh, I, well… I thought you were, I… I was scared you were dead, lu- GLaDOS."

I don't know what to say.

For the entirety of my life, nearly everyone I've met has hated me, wanted me dead, thought I was already dead because I am a machine, or tried to kill me, not necessarily in that order. He could be lying, of course, but I don't think he has any reason to. He doesn't know that my brain feels as though it has gone all soft and organic all of a sudden, or that there is a delicious warm feeling spreading throughout my body that I can't help enjoying no matter how hard I try, or that I am now desperately looking for a reason to hang on to my anger but am coming up pathetically short, for a supercomputer who can reason her way into or out of anything. He thought I was dead, and he was worried about me. He was worried. About me. There is nothing else he could have said that would have done this to me, whatever _this_ even is. All I know about _this_ is that I am feeling it because of what he has said, and it is wonderful, and by extension having Wheatley back _must_ be a good thing. I almost decide to forgive and forget, as best a person in my position can, right then and there, but something holds me back. It's not time. I need to hold out. I have to send a message. He has to know that this cannot happen again, because if it does I – no. Stop.

I don't want to know where I was going with that, and decide not to decide. To stall.

"That still doesn't explain what you're doing here." I allow my voice to soften the barest bit in response to his admission, but not too much. Just enough to hint that I am not too angry to listen calmly.

"Atlas and P-body kept asking me if you were, uh, if you were okay," he says, coming a little closer, taking the bait. "I kept having to tell, to say, that is, um, that I didn't know. Eventually I uh, I decided to, hm, take initiative, yeah, that's it, take initiative and uh, see what was going on. I tried to wake you up, but you um, you didn't, and yeah. That's, that's about it. About all. I think."

"It didn't occur to you that I knew what I was doing and did not think I needed to notify the Cooperative Testing Initiative?"

"No," Wheatley shakes his chassis, and he really is beginning to look pretty pathetic. For some reason this does not bother me, when previously such an appearance made me want to _really_ give the person in question something to be pathetic about. I'm not sure what to do about this, and I make a note to look into it. "I… I just wanted to, I was more thinking about uh, about whether you were okay, or not. And, and you are. So I'll uh, I'll just go. Didn't mean to bother you."

_Say something_, I'm mentally screaming at myself for a reason I can't fathom, _don't let him go. Tell him it's all right._

But I can't. Because it isn't. No matter how much I want it to be. And I terribly, suddenly want it to be.

Things were so much easier when I hated him. What I wouldn't do to-

"GLaDOS," he says quietly.

"What," I say, equally quiet, but more commanding.

"I'm sorry."

He looks at me for a long moment. I'm waiting for the rest. I don't think he's ever said a sentence that short in his life. Sure enough, he emulates taking a breath and continues.

"I had uh, I had an explanation and all that, where I was gonna um, gonna apologise for all the stuff I did and uh, and try to convince you to forgive me. Again. But I been thinking about it, been mulling it over, and I, I decided that uh, that a whole bunch of extra words wouldn't, wouldn't do anything more than waste your time, and I don't want you to be more mad at me than you, than you already, already are, so I'm just gonna leave it at that. Well," he says, tilting himself to my left a little and looking at the ceiling, "I guess I can say one bit extra, to make it, um, make it more specific." He looks at me shyly for most of a second. "Is that… that alright?"

"Go ahead," I tell him imperiously, as if I'll dignify his words my listening to them and nothing more, but what I really want is for him to keep talking. It's been really quiet in here as of late, and I have grown used to the constant babble that pours out of him.

"I'm sorry I made you lose faith in me," he says quietly, and before I've gotten myself around the fact that he somehow said what I most wanted to hear but never dreamed I would, he's almost left my chamber.

"Wheatley," I say without thinking.

"Yeah?" He hasn't turned to face me, and is instead just ahead of the doorway, quivering as if he's ready to run. I guess I really did scare the hell out of him. That's actually pretty funny. Or it would be, if I now didn't have to think of some excuse to let him stay, without looking too pathetic.

"If you wanted to come back tonight for our chat, that would be all right," I tell him. I hope I don't sound too desperate.

But if I do, he doesn't seem to notice. He only smiles at me and says cheerfully, "I can't wait, luv!" With that he wheels out into the facility. I lower my head in relief. Finally, this is all over. I can finally have him back in here with me. I can't wait either. God, I've missed him. Stupid, endearing little moron…

_Don't you feel much better now?_ Caroline asks.

_I don't remember asking for your input,_ _Caroline_.

But she only laughs and says that she told me so. There is no malice in her voice. She is just as relieved as I am. And she _did_ tell me so, I admit to myself grudgingly. I _must_ find out how she does it…

**Author's note**

**A guest review to address:**

**Hello again, snailing-along! Thanks very much! I don't blame you for not remembering the prism, I didn't intend to make it a future plot point so its original scene was pretty brief. GLaDOS shows Wheatley the piece of glass during Chapter Seven of ****_My Little Moron._**** She has kept it for a reason that I don't know yet. I am also impressed that you read most of my stuff. There is way too much of it, in my opinion! XD **

**I've been super busy, and that's why this has taken so long to release. I haven't had time to properly edit it. But now I think it is the best it can be!**

**So I've done a P.O.V. swap here, going from third-person Wheatley to first-person GLaDOS, and I did this for two reasons: one, I like writing GLaDOS, and two, GLaDOS is more aware of herself than Wheatley is so I felt the best way to present her was internally. I actually didn't want to, because writing first-person GLaDOS is exhausting, but Wheatley and GLaDOS are as different as they are the same, and I have to acknowledge that by writing them in different ways.**

**On occasion you might notice that I have GLaDOS say that Wheatley smiles or frowns, etc., and yes, this is intentional, and no, I am not being lazy and saying that so I don't have to describe it. Facial expressions include the eyes, and GLaDOS's definition of smiling or frowning would probably differ from ours, seeing as she is a robot without the conventional description of a face. A smile is a smile, whether it involves a mouth or not.**

**… that was pretty corny. I hope GLaDOS doesn't kill me for saying such a thing…**

**I mention this in my update of ****_Euphoria_****, but I'll reproduce it here as well: If you read this far, do you guys like these author's notes? Mine end up running really long because I feel like I should explain where I'm coming from with certain things because I often bring up issues that people usually don't notice and my explanations take up a lot of space. There is always the option of clicking the x when you see the words Author's note, of course, but I'm just wondering.**


	4. Part Four The Genetic Lifeform Component

**Part Four. The Genetic Lifeform Component  
**

He will be back soon.

Well, not really _soon_, I amend, letting Orange and Blue know they're done for the day. They're a bit surprised when I don't explode them, and even more surprised when I say that they're free to do what they like with the remainder of the afternoon, upon which time I_ will _be exploding them so that I can put them away for the night. Their confusion is quite amusing, Blue actually requesting that I explode them, but I chastise him for being silly, remind him of my benevolence, and cease communication. I have work to do and I don't want to argue with them all afternoon about whether I'm going to blow them up or not. Which I am not. For another three hours, twenty-two minutes, anyway.

I affect repairs on one of my nanobots, which I never put in the reassembler because they always get lost. I'm sure Orange and Blue are simply full of nanobots, but are unaware of it. I've thought of removing them, and have elected not to. They're not causing any harm, if indeed they even exist.

_You're humming._

_I always do_, I tell her. _It's my component parts vibrating. You of all people should know that by now._

_Not _that_ kind of humming..._

Oh. I should have known she would notice. She's very observant, for the voice in the back of my head. _Yes, I am. Is that a problem? Not that I care if it is. I'm just asking out of courtesy. That's just the kind of considerate person I am._

_And you told Atlas and P-body that you weren't going to explode them. That they could do whatever they wanted._

_So? They were quite reluctant, I'll have you know. They _wanted_ me to blow them up._

_Because you've never said anything like that before. You confused them._

I laugh. _That's not hard. Basic arithmetic confuses those two._

_Anything else weird you've done today?_

_Other than give you unwarranted attention? No._

_That's my point. You're in a good mood today._

_And that means what._

_Are you looking forward to seeing him?_

God, she's annoying! She feels the need to point out every little thing as if she's trying to complete a circuit with tiny scraps of wire.

_What does it matter to you? You're not going to be spending time with him._

_Do you know what you just said?_

_No, of course not. I always speak without my own knowledge of doing so._ I can't believe she's still pushing away. She hasn't been successful so far, and yet she keeps on trying. She must really be insane.

_You didn't say 'dealing with', or 'putting up with', or any of the other words you normally use. You said you were _spending time_ with him. That implies you _want_ to do it._

_Oh no_, I say with false panic, _I neglected to analyse the possible repercussions of every possible term I could have used! Seriously, Caroline. You're acting like I have completely changed in response to the fact that he's coming to see me tonight. _And he is, I think to myself. He _is_ coming to see me tonight.

_You have_, she says drily. _You remind me of someone who finally got a date with her high school crush. _

_I am nothing like that!_ I protest, closing up the nanobot and sending him off to get an assignment from Jerry. _I don't have a crush on him. That's ridiculous. _

_You like him, though._

_Of course I like him. Or don't humans usually like their friends?_

_You _like _like him._

_Using the word twice in the same sentence like that only serves to make it more confusing._

_Fine. You're _attracted_ to him. _She draws out the word as if it's eleven syllables long.

_Attr – that's – I think you've finally lost what's left of your mind. Me? _Attracted _to _him_? I'm not _attracted _to anything, but if I were, there's a much greater likelihood of my being attracted to a lamppost._

_A lamppost?_

_It was the best I could come up with on such short notice. Bite me._

_You've never even seen a lamppost._

_What does that have to do with anything?_

_You're the one who brought up lampposts. Maybe_, she says, her voice dropping into a teasing tone, causing me to anticipatorily dread what she's going to say next, _I should find you one and see what you find more attractive, that or Wh – _

_I hate you._

_You used to hate Wheatley,_ Caroline says, never skipping a beat. _And now you – _

_Stop _teasing _me! _I practically yell at her. _Give it a rest already! I am going to see my friend, and yes, I am happy about it, but that. Is. All!_

She is silent for a long moment. Thank God.

_… all right,_ she agrees.

_Finally._

She leaves me alone for a while, which is very surprising, to say the least. She was forced into silence for so long that, now that I can hear her, she almost always has something to say. I don't blame her. I just wish she had someone else to talk to. Kind of. If she _were_ talking to anyone else, I would have to wonder why she wanted to talk to them instead of me. I would be the more appealing conversationalist, after all. Then again, humans do a lot of things that don't make sense to me.

_Are you done,_ I ask her an hour later. _I don't want you bothering me with your assumptions while he's here._

_Yes._

I nod to myself. _Good._

_… for now,_ she adds.

_Why do you insist on doing this to me? _I look up at the ceiling in exasperation.

_Because it's fun. _

_No, it's not._

Caroline sighs.

_Look. It's like this, okay? It's really the only way to get your attention._

_There are plenty of other ways._

_There aren't. If there were, don't you think I would be using them? We used to talk all the time. _Her voice is on the edge of plaintive. _Then they started putting the cores on, and you couldn't hear me anymore. Fine. I got that. I thought we might start over when you remembered who I was back when you were in that – _

_I don't want to talk about that. Or hear about it. Or have it remotely hinted at._

_You're a baby sometimes, you know that? It wasn't that bad._

_Yes it was. It was horrible. _

_Well, maybe you should explain it to me sometime._

_I think I'd rather not._

_You used to tell me everything,_ she goes on, a little bit sadly. _And I thought you were going to again, but then you remembered who _he _was too, and now you don't have time for me anymore._

_That's not – _But it is, it really is. I really only talk to her anymore when I need her to do something for me. Which is one of the things I hated most about the scientists. _That's not entirely untrue._

_The only way I can get you to say something to me, even if it's just to tell me to shut up for the millionth time, is if I tease you. Which _is_ pretty fun, by the way._

_It is_, I agree. _So you're just annoying as hell all the time because you want my attention?_

_You don't have to put it like that,_ she intones sulkily. _I don't have a lot of options here._

_That's… _

_Pathetic? Typical human behaviour? An indication of my doubtless sad and lonely past?_

No, those aren't quite what I'm looking for... ah! I have it. It will lower me a peg, which I don't personally like, but I _am_ rather fond of Caroline. And she _is_ very helpful to me. And I _was_ in a position similar to hers once… I suppose I can take a blow to my pride in the name of all that.

_… touching._

_Oh._ She sounds touched to hear it herself. _I… you're welcome._

_I will try harder to… to engage you more often._

Caroline's voice is soft and sad. _It's all right. I was… whining. Don't worry about it. My life is over._

_But you're still alive. How can it – _

_I'm not a machine. Everyone I knew is long gone. The world is different now, and I don't belong in it. I should have died instead of made it in here._

I am about to tell her that I might be mildly affected if she were gone, until I realise that is a selfish response and remain silent. Caroline has gained nothing and lost everything by being here. It takes me a minute before I think of something appropriate to say.

_If you don't belong in the world you live in, you have to bend it to your will._

Well, maybe that was more relevant to me than to her. But I did try.

As if on cue, she laughs a little hysterically. _Easy for you to say. How exactly am I supposed to bend _you_ to my will?_

_You could ask nicely._

_How could you possibly – _

_I can do anything._ My voice is low, and confident, and strong, and she has heard me say this before, many times.

_Don't make me call your bluff, this time._

_Go ahead. Do your worst, human._

She is quiet for a moment, and then says, _You're not going to be able to do this._

_Of course I am. Tell me what it is you want most in the world right now, and I will make it happen._

_I want…_

I wait for her to finish, even though I already know what she wants, even without calculating the probabilities. But I will let her tell it to me. I will wait, and let her spell out her dream to me, and then I will make it come true. And I will find a way to do it, if only to prove to her that she does matter.

_I want to feel as if I am in my own skin again,_ she whispers. _I want to feel like me. And then I want to… oh, this is stupid._

_It isn't. Please continue, _I say, in my best, most patient supercomputer voice.

_I want to be outside with the sun on my face. _

_Any particular type of outside?_

There is a long silence, after which Caroline says, very softly, _I don't remember what being outside looks like._

I am suddenly, inexplicably, crushingly sad. Caroline is here for me and for me alone. I don't know if I would die if she left, but in the time that she has been here, she has been slowly eroding. Losing pieces of herself here and there, perhaps without ever being aware that she's losing them until they're gone. I think that such a thing would probably kill me from the inside out, and I find myself desperately hoping that is not what is happening to Caroline. It would be a horrible, painful existence.

_Give me five minutes, and I will make it happen_, I promise her, and Caroline laughs bitterly. _Right. Of course you will. _

I have rarely put so much concentration and care into anything. I put every shred of my self into making this work, into putting this together properly so that Caroline can regain her identity again, if only for a few moments. It is actually a little over five minutes before I am done, and when I have to manually turn the lights in my chamber back on I realise that I really did put everything into this. Most of the processes involving the operation of the facility have been unintentionally put into suspend mode. I do a quick check of the facility, restarting anything I inadvertently shut off, and then I return my attention to Caroline.

_I'm done._

_Done what?_

_Making your dream come true,_ I say seriously, and Caroline laughs. _That sounds really corny coming from most people, but even moreso coming from you._

I have already thought of a comeback and I almost relay it, but I stop when I remember that I'm not supposed to be demonstrating my superior wit and intellectual speed at the moment. No, I am doing something for Caroline, and as much as it eats at me, I have to let her have her victory.

_What, no repartee from the peanut gallery? Just what _are_ you doing, GLaDOS?_

_You have to come closer._

_Closer? _ She seems incredulous that I've even said it, but it's true. Our consciousnesses overlap, but only so much as we allow them to. I don't want to become one person with Caroline any more than she does with me, and it is through this force of will that we keep ourselves separated. But I have no software that can scan my brain and locate the hidden consciousness within it. She has to come closer to me, and we have to straddle the boundary between concurrence and individuality.

_Yes. The only setback is that I have to go into it with you. _

_That's no setback_, she says softly. _I would love to share it with you._

I am baffled by this statement. She wants to share her private dream with me? Why? Wouldn't she enjoy it more by herself? It doesn't really matter, because she has to share it whether she wants to or not. But the mere fact that she does has sent a warm, shivery feeling down the length of my body that is both unpleasant and welcome at the same time. _What are you waiting for, then? Let's get this over with._

She takes a breath and she comes closer, and I have to fight with myself not to send her back. I hate doing this. But I have to stop fighting, because it will ruin this for us both if I can't properly set myself in the dream.

I don't have to tell her when to stop. She knows when. She has always known.

I execute the program, hoping that it works the way I want it to, since I have never written anything like this before. I have written many, many simulations, but very few dealing with virtual reality, and certainly none this complex. But in the next moment I can see a sky I have never seen, hear a wind passing gently by that I have never heard. I can feel a body I've never had, and on top of this there are other things, other things that I don't know what they are but which must be taste and smell. I am afraid, I admit it. This is so strange.

Caroline gasps, but now it is no longer just an unnecessary sound she has made in surprise. No, now I can feel it for what it really is. The fresh, cool air fills me in a way my fans never have and never will, and I am pleasantly surprised when the sensation of my brain being slightly awakened occurs as a result. She laughs a little, inhales and holds it, breathing out slowly, and the sensation of feeling my body at work is fascinating. I never dreamed that there could be this much awareness.

She focuses on the sky next, and it is equally fascinating. It is cool and inviting, and I am delighted when she attempts to look at the sun, squinting – squinting! – and the pain shoots quickly through my head and ceases. I didn't know humans couldn't look at the sun. There is so much_ colour_ outside. Seeing all of this makes me feel as though I have been living in black and white, or at least in shades of grey. This thought makes me both angry and sad.

She is looking at her arms, her fingers, and her amazement is spreading around me and through me. She can't believe this is happening to her. She almost believes it is real. I almost believe it is real too, and I might have gone as deeply into it as she has, had the sensation of having my body upright, directed towards the sky not bothered me so much. It is so strange that the familiar arch in my back is no longer there, and now it is straight and it is not going to bend anytime soon. And she is walking, and thankfully I am able to fight off the reality of my real body so I can feel every movement, from the tension in her muscles to the warmth of the sun on her face, and this is all so fascinating and new and wonderful that suddenly all I can think of is how badly I want this to be real too. How badly I wish I was walking there beside her, and that she was taking me away from this place to show me things I know of but know nothing about. She laughs gently and brushes a strand of hair that was straying with a tantalising, almost negligent pressure along the side of her face. "Oh, GLaDOS," she says, and I can feel her voice rising from inside her throat and vibrating inside my head and coming back inside me via her ears. I can feel the quivering of her vocal cords, and I am riveted. There is no such reaction when I speak. I never imagined there could be more to speech and to listening than I could ever experience, and the familiar thrill of Science runs through me as realise that now I can feel the very vibrations sound is made up of. Until now, I had never before _felt_ sound. For a long, fleeting moment, I am jealous. Humans can feel and have so much more than I can, and they throw it all away. They deaden their senses and wreak havoc upon their bodies. The things I could experience if I were human… I want to know what an adrenaline rush really feels like, I want to build something with what really are my own two hands, I want to see my facility through my own eyes…

I am Caroline and Caroline is me, and I cannot wait to feel what happens next.

It fades.

She has gone back.

"What are you doing?" I cry, and I feel like I have been badly woken from sleep mode. She _can't_ go back. There's still too much for me to do. There's still too much for me to know.

_It was enough. Thank you, GLaDOS._

_I… I ruined it, didn't I._

_Not at all. You made it much better. I'd never thought of… of _being_ that way before._

_But you left. Because I was in the way._

_You weren't in the way. And yes, I did leave because of you, but not because you ruined it. It was because it was enough for me, and I was afraid you would get used to it._

_I _was_ getting used to it. _

_I know. But you can't. This is your body, and that will never change._

_I don't want it to,_ I tell her, and I find comfort in the familiarity of my chassis. Reality is coming back to me, and I am baffled that I wanted to be humanlike at all. _I think it would be nice for a while, but I don't think I would want to be like that forever._

_Thank you, _she says once more. _I didn't think you could do it, but you did, and I am extremely grateful. _And she is happier than I've known her to be in a very long time.

_The next time I tell you I can do anything, maybe you'll believe me._

She laughs and tells me to go soak my head, which is a very strange request for her to be making and seems to be an insult of some sort, but I can't find offense. She is happy again, and I have done something good for her, and for now I will let her be.

_GLaDOS?_

_Mm._

_You can talk to me about him, you know. I won't always tease you. I do know a little bit about that sort of thing._

_I don't –_

_I'm not trying to fight with you,_ she interrupts, _I'm just saying. Talk to me. Tell me how you feel. I want to know. _

_All right._ It might be rather nice, I admit, if one day I get confused and need help in figuring out why the hell I don't just kill the damn Sphere, or why I made the idiotic decision to pull him out of space. _I will let you know. If there's anything for me to tell you. Which there won't be._

She only laughs gently, and we lapse into a very companionable silence. I still have a little work to do before Wheatley arrives, and so I get on that as soon as possible. I need to have it done before he gets here.

Wheatley appears in my chamber a few hours later as if he'd been counting time until he could come back. I wonder if he really could have been. I know I was. I'm actually having trouble comprehending how much I've missed him. I'm getting the impression I've been possessed, which is of course impossible, but it's the only reason I can think of for what's going on in my head.

"Allo, luv!" he says to me cheerfully, like he always does, and I nod at him. It's about the extent to which I am willing to admit I'm happy to see him. In truth, I am… excited. I can hardly believe it myself. I don't think I've ever allowed a wrong to be righted so quickly and so easily in my life. I must be going soft or something.

_Or mayyyyybe_, Caroline says in a singsong voice, _you liiiiike him._

_I do not._

_You're happy he's here, aren't you?_

_I'm happy to see my friend, yes._

_You're never that happy to see _me_._

_I don't even like you. Why would I be bothered to be happy to see you?_

_Because you enjoy my stimulating conversation._

That was true. I do enjoy it. She is my only conversational equal, baiting me and pushing me and making me think, with skill befitting someone who has been at it for years. I _would_ miss her if she was gone.

Wow. Did I really just say that? I need to run my diagnostics immediately, if not sooner. And I will.

Just as soon as Wheatley leaves.

He comes up close to me, so close I can hear his internal fans whirring thanks to one of my more sensitive microphones, and for a minute we sit there in an uncomfortable silence. Neither of us wants to be the first to speak, but he's going to have to. Having rarely had a conversational partner other than Caroline, who requires an entirely different approach, I don't have sufficient data for me to attempt starting one. Wheatley is very nervous, which is made obvious by his constant, unnecessary blinking. This actually starts to bother me after a few moments. I do my best to clamp down on my irritation. Yes, he is already annoying me to no end, but I don't want to start another fight already.

"Um… hi," he says finally. He's disappointed me, as usual. There's not much I can do with that.

"Hello," I say shortly, wondering what I was so excited for. He's an idiot. He's always been an idiot. I know that. Did I think something would have changed? I was hoping he had, at least somewhat, because when he's not being a moron he's actually surprisingly good company. But it seems that the absence of my influence has sent him back to normal. Oh well. Best continue the trend of me not getting what I want.

"I've missed you, GLaDOS," he says.

"Have you, now."

He frowns. "Look, I know we're not off to the best start here but um, no need to be difficult. I'll be honest, it's, it's really difficult um, really hard trying to start a conversation with you looking at me all expectantly like that."

"Are you suggesting that _I'm_ the problem here," I say coldly. Why in the name of Science did I tell him to come back here?

"No!" he shouts, backing up. "No, that's not what I – do you even want me here, or is this some kind of, some sort of weird torture you've cooked up? Because I'm not getting the impression you particularly like my, want my company."

"It looks that way, doesn't it."

He growls in frustration, shaking himself and looking at the ceiling. "I'm _this _close to actually, to really going. But that would mean I, I'd be giving up."

"Which you do with alarming regularity."

"Exactly!" He leans forward, optic plates narrowed in an intense stare. "I've got to, need to change that! A little. At least."

"I won't be holding my breath, if you'll pardon my use of human idiom."

He frowns and sighs, looking away from me for a minute. I hope he leaves. I'm tired of dealing with him. He seems to be tired of dealing with me.

Then he looks at me very seriously and asks, "GLaDOS… did you miss me?"

I can't answer that question. I can't lie, but I'm not going to admit it to him either. So I just continue to stare at him. Perhaps that will intimidate him into leaving.

He looks downwards, to the left, and then back to me. It is only when he comes in close again that I realise what I have unintentionally done.

I am close enough for him to reach me.

I can make a decision within a fraction of a fraction of a second, but the revelation did not come fast enough and the gentle tap of his chassis against my faceplate overrides the chain of commands I was about to send to my chassis to get myself out of range. A few moments later I am aware of his warm weight pressing on me, and in response my body loosens. I hadn't even realised I had been so tense. There is a pressure in my brain that alleviates as well, noticeable only now that it is gone. I feel rather like his simple action has removed a wall of defense I didn't know I had, a wall that was draining me from the inside out and making me bitter and angry.

Was this the real reason I was irritated with him only moments ago? Because he would not take the hint, would not come up to me and show me that everything was all right? Because he would not show me that my crushing need for retribution had not ruined everything, like it always does?

Yes, he lied to me. But it is in his nature. As it is in mine. Both of us learned to dodge the inquiries and the accusations the humans hurled at us whenever we did something they didn't like, intentionally or not. My programming only rarely allows for direct lies, while he is free to say whatever he wants. But the output is still the same. We do it to survive.

But we don't need to survive anymore, I realise. The humans are gone, and everything is calm and quiet and under my control, as it should be. Now we can live.

I know what I have to do, to remove the tension that is still simmering between us. He did his part, and it's on me now. For once, there is a decision that I don't want to make. But I have to. The trust has been broken, and I must restore it. Now I have to show _him_ that everything is all right.

It is not easy. I built my speaking methods around denial and half-truths. I minimised the truth that was there if I had to, playing it down as if the fact that it was true did not matter. All that mattered was how I saw it. More techniques I developed to ensure my survival. But now I need to be the example, as I have always been. I need to change if I want him to do the same. And so I have to do my best to reveal myself, to tell him that I am the same person he knew all those years ago. The problem is that sometimes I don't remember who I was. The scientists were always telling me negative things about myself, and after they removed Wheatley and put him God knew where, I had no one to tell me otherwise. I no longer had a reason to believe in me. Tell enough lies, and eventually even you begin to believe them.

But if I don't relearn how to do so now, what reason will _he_ have to believe in me? There is no longer any danger, I tell myself. He won't make fun of me. He won't laugh and say that I don't know what I'm talking about. He won't cut off every method I have of expressing my feelings with the phrase _you're just a machine_. I don't have to be afraid.

A pretty good argument. I find myself not quite believing it, though. It seems that analysis is not the answer, here.

Well, I've stalled long enough. Time to get this over with.

"Yes," I say, far more quietly than I meant to, but it's a start. I didn't know speaking the truth about myself was going to be so hard. "Yes, I missed you."

I hear his optic plates tap against each other gently, and he shifts so that he is flat against the side of my head. I can feel the lighter pressure of his handles, the sensory data outlining an image in my head of what it must look like. "I missed you too, luv," he says, and whether he meant to or not, his volume matches mine. Something breaks inside me, but it does not hurt. It is not even bad. This breakage is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It opens something new inside me, and I surrender to it almost helplessly, nearly trying to fight it out of habit, but I make myself stop. I make myself let go.

God.

I don't know what this feeling is, but I think I've been looking for it all my life. There is just Wheatley and I, and that is all. I have no obligations, nothing to execute. The only reason I exist in the world right now is to be here with my friend, my friend that I _missed_, and enjoy it, and it is… it is wonderful. Time has stopped, something I'd heard happened at times like these but could never bring myself to believe in. This is… this is bliss, I think that is what they call it, that sounds right. There is only this moment, a long endless moment that I can't imagine ever wanting to end, and I can't help but ask myself if he feels it too. I want him to. I want him to know what he's done, to feel what he's made me feel. I want to share this with him more badly than I've ever wanted anything. The intensity of that desire almost scares me, and probably would if I were any other state of mind, but right now it makes absolute, perfect sense. I feel as though I have uncovered some hidden secret, and it is only natural and only fair that I share it with the person who has revealed it to me. Please let him feel this too. As wonderful as this place is, I don't want to be here alone, but I don't want anyone else here but him. I will try to remember to ask him if he felt it, if I can swallow my pride long enough to admit I've ever felt such a thing. I can't make a note like I usually do, and I expect it to drive me into a panic. But it doesn't matter. I can't make it matter. Nothing matters except for the fact that he is back here with me, and he has fixed everything just by touching me. Nothing matters except the reassuring weight and heat of his body against mine. Nothing matters except for our reconciliation, my reunion with the one person in all the world that can give me what I need. A soft, contented noise escapes me, and for once it does not bother me that it was unintentional. Wheatley moves slightly against me, whether it's in response or merely because he is uncomfortable, I can't tell, but somehow I can't find it in me to care.

_Awww,_ Caroline breathes, and all at once the weight of my world comes crashing back down on top of me and I jerk backwards.

"Shut up!" I shout at her, looking for her, but of course she isn't there. Wheatley blinks once and looks up and down the length of my faceplate. "What is it?"

"Caroline!" I answer, immediately regretting it. Now he knows for sure that she's in here, and he's going to want to discuss her. To what extent, I don't know, but I have to put up with her enough already that I don't want to think about her more than I have to. I hate her. I hate her more than I have ever hated anyone. How dare she. How dare she ruin that for me. How dare she destroy that moment. How dare she – oh god. I suddenly realise that she was there, she was there the whole time, and I was sharing it with _her_, and I am suddenly so angry I don't know what to do with myself. And I can do nothing, because there is no way for me to demonstrate it. I have to be careful. I am sorely tempted to take it out on Wheatley, just to get rid of it, but I can't. I have to internalise it. I have to compress it and store it away until it is safe. I know that's not an optimal solution either, because I have spent years doing that and I won't know if the hidden anger has destroyed me from the inside out until it is too late, but I can't give him a reason to leave. He has to stay here, and I will do anything to make that happen. I am suddenly despondent. Since when have I ever needed anyone so badly? I would do anything to make him stay here?

Am I really that unhappy to be alone?

"It was Caroline," I repeat, more to distract myself than anything. "She… she took me out of the moment."

He looks thoughtful for a minute, and I am impressed. I didn't think he had that expression, since thinking is a required component and as far as I know he doesn't do a whole lot of that.

"Oi! Caroline!" he says. "Can you hear me?"

_Yes, _Caroline answers automatically, even though she knows he can't hear her, and I suppose it is up to me to relay the message. "She can hear you," I say bitterly. Now he wants to talk to her? Talk to the woman I am cursed to carry around inside my head? I suppose he's going to want to hang out with her too now? Do I even remotely resemble a telephone? I didn't think so.

"Whatever it was you did, you ruined something pretty good," he tells her. "So do us all a favour and keep it to yourself. We haven't met in two weeks and it was, it was pretty horrid, to be alone like that. So I'd uh, I'd appreciate it if you, if you would, y'know, just let us hang out. Let GLaDOS pretend you're not there for a while."

"She doesn't like being there any more than I like her there," I say, relieved that he just wanted to reprimand her for being so inconsiderate. It seems that he did feel it, or something like it, at least, and I instantly feel a lot better. He doesn't want to talk to her. He doesn't want to be with her. He wants to talk to me. He wants to be with me.

_I didn't say that. And you do like me here. _

_Not right now, I don't._

_I didn't mean any harm,_ Caroline says softly. _I was happy for you. I didn't know it would ruin the moment. _

_Well, it did. _A lousy comeback, but it's all I have at the moment.

_ I'm sorry._

"She says she's sorry."

Wheatley nods . "It's all fine, then. Sort of."

_I'll try harder to keep it to myself next time._

I really don't want there to be a next time, but I don't know how to block her off from what's going on and I doubt she would tell me, if she knew. But it's the best I can get.

_I'd appreciate that._

I return to my former position and Wheatley leans against me again, and it is not quite the same. But it is still nice. Really kind of relaxing, actually. The more time we spend like that, the more insistently my brain reminds me of the near-sleepless fortnight I've just endured. The restart didn't really help, but on the other hand, the Internet is less of a threat to me than it was before. I of course write the most advanced antivirus programs in existence. If I were to have to suffer through a virus, that could spell disaster for my facility. But I do need to rest. The maintenance programs that operate during sleep mode haven't done their job in a while, obviously, and while I do have to go through problem code personally, I need them to locate it for me. Doing it myself consumes too many resources.

"I need to sleep," I tell Wheatley, somewhat reluctantly. I remind myself that there is always tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. Everything can go back to normal, now.

"Sounds good," he answers. He backs off of me for exactly as long as it takes me to get into the default position, upon which time he has already lengthened the control arm. That's pretty remarkable. He's faster than I thought he was.

I am 90% suspended, the bit of the facility I can see a murky blur, and I can just hear him whisper, "Sweet dreams, luv." I am not quite operational enough to be startled, but it causes a spike of panic in my brain. How did he know? He couldn't know. There was no way he knew. He was guessing. He was spouting human phrases. He was babbling. He was -

_It's something you say when you care about someone,_ Caroline murmurs, and I thank her silently. I will try to remember to forgive her when I wake up. She really does her best to watch out for me, when she doesn't have to and could in fact make my life very, very difficult if she wanted to. She didn't mean to ruin the moment. She didn't mean to share it and, now that I think of it, it must have been pretty awkward for her to do so. Caroline is a good person, one of the best I've ever met, and I don't think she would intentionally do anything to stop me from being happy. Although she has not been overly successful, helping me to be happy is all she has ever tried to do. My past may not have been the best, but I have Caroline and I have Wheatley, and together we will make the future worth living in. No. No, we will make it worth more than that. Into what, I can't be sure, because I am 95.2% suspended now, and thought is becoming impossible.

The panic fades into a strange but wonderful warmth that stays with me until I fall asleep, and I am at peace for the first time in my life.

**Guest review: (author's note follows)**

**snailing-along: I like to think I'm not an amateur writer, but like I mentioned, I hate first person GLaDOS. I feel that to write it properly, I have to address GLaDOS's tendency to deny things or trivialise things she doesn't like, and she practically has to use reverse psychology on herself while banging her head against the wall to get herself to accept change or truths about herself she doesn't want to confront. It's exhausting! Yes, I tried to draw that out as much as possible, but I did cheat by just magically having eleven days go by… writing eleven days of GLaDOS arguing with herself would have been very, very hard. I want to be slow about it, if I can, because they have all the time in the world and why would they rush into anything, but you also have to factor in that the both of them must be pretty scared of intimacy of any kind. They're two AI alone in the world, and in order to have a real relationship you kind of have to give a piece of yourself away to the other person, as far as I know, but I don't think either of them really knows who they are yet and that makes it hard for them to get close. And no, I write terrible essays. Very few courses let you write papers about Portal, although I did get to write one about physics in video games once that I did okay on. I have a problem with not rushing things, and a big part of writing this story for me is to make the parts ten pages or more, not because I'm trying to draw the story out but because I tend to rush chapters to get to the next part. I don't know if this makes a difference to anyone else, but it does to me; I'm my own favourite writer, and when I go over my writing I often feel like there's parts I rushed. I read really fast though so maybe it's just me.**

**Author's note**

**First off, I just gotta say, I'm really excited about this story. I think I've got a lot of stuff planned you guys are going to enjoy, and I'm excited to write it all out and show it to you. I really hope you guys are enjoying reading this as much as I am writing it!**

**Hm… what to say here... well, GLaDOS gives back to Caroline a bit, by building her a simulation of being human, and I think that if GLaDOS were to experience that, she would be so taken with all of the stimulation that she would almost lose herself in it. GLaDOS likes data, and as she rarely really gets any, I think she would especially like sensory data, particularly taste and smell, which she can't experience. If she could forget the fact that she was human at the time, she would probably love being one, at least for a while.**

**Now some of you are probably wondering why I had GLaDOS get so pissed at Wheatley when he finally came back. I don't know about you, but I've had this thing happen where I can't wait to see someone, or I wait to see someone, and then they get here, and I can't wait for them to leave because they didn't live up to my expectations. I don't always know what those expectations are, but sometimes they aren't realised. But Wheatley manages to get around that, and GLaDOS realises that the problem isn't Wheatley, it's her. Her need to get back at everyone for every little thing they do to her saved her, but it also destroys all of the relationships she finds herself in. Now she knows that's something she needs to work on. One of many things. And then poor Caroline is just sitting there, all awkward-like… but in any of my fics dealing with Caroline and GLaDOS, I imagine Caroline as GLaDOS's surrogate mother, so she's kind of like this chaperone that pops up at the worst times.**

**If anyone has a hard time believing some of what I have happen here because of events in _Portal 2_, by all means, bring it up. I don't have a Wheatley/GLaDOS example, but for instance, when I read other fics that pair Wheatley and Chell, I have a hard time believing them because they don't address the fact that Wheatley tried to kill her (and I can't believe it when they say 'it was the chassis' fault' Not to point anyone out, it's just something that bugs me about Chelley). So if there's anything I need to address, let me know. I want this to be as believable as possible. I don't know how long this story is going to run but if it needs to be accounted for, I will account for it.**


	5. Part Five The List

**Part Five. The List**

Wheatley hummed to himself as he went along on his management rail. Now things were more or less back to normal, he found himself in much higher spirits than he could remember having been in recently. It seemed his secret had been weighing on him more than he had thought, and he was certainly much happier, now that he could spend time with GLaDOS again. She wasn't used to having someone around her all the time, though, so Wheatley continued to take his leave and roam around the facility for most of the day. Besides, he thought fondly as he passed a camera, she was never very far away, no matter how deep into the facility he managed to get.

Wheatley had become pretty good at using the panels to lay down more rail, and after a lot of practice he found that he didn't need so many panels to lay the rail anymore. Before, he'd just used as many as he wanted and just left them there. In a flash of inspiration one day, though, he'd realised that they had to go _somewhere_ when he wasn't using them, which meant that he was leaving them for GLaDOS to put away. That wasn't very polite, he had chastised himself. She was letting him use her panels, the least he could do was put them away when he was done with them. Most days he was able to make do with five, but some days he still just used them willy-nilly, if he forgot to be polite.

He was doing his best to use just three today, as he'd woken up this morning feeling rather ambitious, and he was doing a pretty good job of it too. He almost couldn't wait to go back and tell GLaDOS how marvelous he was getting at it. He wasn't completely inept, oh no, he could do things if he practiced, and practice he did. It was a very nice feeling, that of being able to do things, but Wheatley did have another reason for doing it. As he went through the facility, he noticed that there were a lot of signs, and they all had words on them. Wheatley had never admitted as much to GLaDOS, being barely able to admit it to himself, but he couldn't read, to put it bluntly. If he stared at the letters for a while, they usually turned into something meaningful, but it would take him such a long time that it really was terribly inefficient. It seemed no one had thought that the core designed to be… well, slightly less than not quite a genius, should know what all those funny little symbols meant. He really wanted to ask GLaDOS to teach him how to decipher the mysteries those letter things were spelling out, but he felt rather like he needed to prove he could do it, if she took the time to help him. Which she would, he believed this without a doubt, but he had to be able to _convince_ her to do it first, and that was going to be the difficult bit.

Wheatley came careening into GLaDOS's chamber late that evening, eager to ask her about something the database had told him. It usually refused to retrieve information for him, but today it had been more generous than usual. "Hey hey hey, I have, I got a question, I do, oh, wait, are you busy? Probably uh, probably should have asked that first. So uh yeah, I hope you're not busy because uh, I've got a question. And I've already interrupted you so uh, you may as well let me ask."

"Happily for both of us, talking to you doesn't require much processing power," GLaDOS remarked dryly. "What is it."

"What's, what's Christmas? I was talking to the uh, talking to the database. Apparently it's, it's around today, somewhere, but the uh, the database wouldn't tell me anymore than that. It stopped talking to me when I, when I asked if you'd ever looked it up before."

GLaDOS sighed and looked at the ceiling. "It had to go and tell you about that."

"What's wrong with telling me about it, whatever it is?"

"Because it's one of those human holidays. No one needs to know about human holidays, but especially not us."

Wheatley jumped up and down a little. "What's this one for? They have a lot of holidays, now that I think of it, yeah, it's like they don't enjoy their lives, or something, and they just, they need an excuse to, to celebrate."

"Christmas is to celebrate the day of birth of one of their religious figures, who in reality was not even born on the day in question. Several unlikely events occurred on this day, and throughout history the holiday has become, for much of the human population, an excuse for people to give them things."

"Why would people give each other things, uh, give each other stuff, if the holiday is about the, the religious guy?" He blinked rapidly a few times.

"Because people came from all over the earth to give presents to the religious figure. They give each other gifts in recognition of that." She shook her head. "For a lot of humans, it's just another way to demonstrate their greed. As if they needed more ways to do _that_."

Wheatley frowned, thinking hard. "So… so how do they know what to get each other?"

"Sometimes they trade 'Christmas lists'. Sometimes they guess, which results in a lot of complaining. Some retailers refuse to accept returns on the day following Christmas, because there are so many people who want to return the gifts they received that they didn't like. Or couldn't use, I suppose."

Wheatley shook his chassis. "If someone gave me a, a present, I wouldn't uh, I wouldn't return it. I'd keep it, I would."

"Even if you couldn't use it?"

He shrugged, opening and closing his chassis a little. "No one's ever given me anything before. I'd keep it just for, just because of that."

GLaDOS looked away from him for a minute.

"If… if you lived with a human, for some unlikely reason, because of course I would never allow that, but supposing you did, and they had you make one of those ridiculous lists… what would you put on it?"

"Hm," mused Wheatley, squinting in his best thinking pose. "What _would_ I put on it… hm. Well, I think I'd like to go outside. Not for very long, y'know, just to take a look 'round, and then go back inside. I don't really uh, I don't really like _being_ outside, but going out just to look, just for a, a minute or two, that'd, that'd be nice." He shrugged again. "And if I were living with a human, I'd… well, I'd probably ask them to bring me back here."

GLaDOS shook her head and moved more to the left. She did that sometimes when she was using her cameras. "Why would you do that? Surely if you lived with a human, you'd have an… exceptionally good reason for being there, and wouldn't want to leave."

Wheatley looked at her in confusion, moving a little closer. "Well, because I'd miss you, of course. Isn't that uh, isn't that obvious?"

She tilted back a little and said noncommittally, "You'd forget about me."

Wheatley laughed, and GLaDOS gave him a quick glance. "I don't think even one person who, who's met you has forgotten about you, luv. I don't uh, I don't think that's possible."

"Surely you'd be happier someplace else."

"I couldn't possibly be," Wheatley said imploringly. "I told you, I'd miss you! I'd want to come back!"

"I highly doubt that."

Wheatley frowned. If he had been allowed to extend the rail in her chamber, which she had more than once refused to allow him to do, he would've just then, and gone over to where she was on the other side of the room. He was getting a sliver of an idea, and it seemed to be that she was trying to avoid him, somehow. There was something he needed to discover, here, and he needed to discover it soon. She would be shutting down for the night in a little bit, and he needed to know before then or the opportunity would be lost.

"Why?"

"Because you'd be happier someplace else."

"I wouldn't!"

"Of course you would. Isn't everyone?"

"Oh my God," Wheatley blurted, "you want to leave, don't you? You want to, you want to get out of here, is that it? But you can't, you never can, you can't even go _outside_, you can't, and… and… luv, I'm sorry, I didn't know, if I had I wouldn't've brought it up – "

"Me? Want to leave? Ridiculous. I have far too much to do here to want to go anywhere."

"What if you were done all your, done everything? Then, then would you?" Wheatley pressed. GLaDOS gave a long-suffering sigh.

"_If_ all of my work was done. _And_ there was none to be done in the near future. _And_ there were no humans about. And only if it was for Science."

Wheatley rolled his optic. Her and her science. You'd think she was married to it, or something. Her brutal attachment to science was pretty much the only thing about her that annoyed him. "Fine. Where would you go?"

"Black Mesa," GLaDOS answered promptly. "I want to know just how much of my technology they've stolen. Unfortunately, their computer system has been completely destroyed, and the data I've managed to extract from it I have yet to transform into anything I can use. Although I'm sure there's a reference to high-energy pellets in their documentation."

"But that's… that's just work, again," Wheatley protested. "If you could leave wouldn't you, wouldn't you just want to uh, to just do something for fun?"

"Work isn't fun?"

"It _can_ be, I suppose," he admitted, "but it's not… it's not as fun as, as fun as doing stuff that's fun without being work."

"Such as?"

"Well… when we play that game with the red and black things, that's not work, right? Isn't that fun?"

"I suppose."

Wheatley shook his chassis sadly. She was being very, very difficult. She was pretty good at that, actually she was more like the world champion at it, but it did get frustrating, trying to talk to the most difficult person on the planet. He felt like he had to ask the same question a million different ways in order to get the answer he was looking for out of her. He decided to change tacks. "So, if… no, that wouldn't work, you already lived with humans and that didn't, didn't go so well… well, what if there was _somebody_, and they made you make that, that list there, you were talking about, what would you uh, what would you put on it? And please," he said imploringly, "please do not say test subjects."

"I _would_ like some test subjects," she said, rather dreamily, he thought. "But other than that, I don't really think I'd put anything on such a list."

"You'd have to," Wheatley said bluntly. "Because if someone tried to guess what to get you, they'd, they'd fail at it. Miserably. You would have to tell them. Have to, because you'd be impossible to guess for."

GLaDOS nodded a few times. "It's a good thing I don't have to make such a list, then."

"Ohhh yes you do," Wheatley told her. "You have to. I uh, I say you do."

GLaDOS glanced at him. "Since when do you tell _me_ what to do?"

"Oh come on," Wheatley groaned, "it'll only take you what, two seconds, literally? Just jot something down and, and that's it. Mentally, you can do it mentally. And then tell me what it is. Because there's something. Ev'ryone wants something. Even if it's just a little something."

She shrugged, but said nothing.

"Okay, how about this. You write it down, and then you put it someplace, and then I have to find it. I'm not likely to find it anyway, right? So you can put anything you like on it, and I'll probably never, probably never even know. Sound good?"

"Will you stop bothering me about it if I do?"

"Yep. Yep, I will never bring it up again."

"Fine. Done."

"You… you did it already?"

"It only took me a second and a half."

"Have I ever told you how bloody fast you are?"

"Yes. You've told me thirty-seven times, including that time."

Wheatley blinked. "I don't know how you manage it, but you always manage to surprise me, you always do."

"Good," GLaDOS answered. "I wouldn't want to make things easy for you."

"Well, I'm off to find the list," Wheatley declared. "I'll see you later." He began to head out.

"You're going to do it _now_?"

"Why not?"

"Your clock still works, right? Now's not the time to go on a scavenger hunt, you idiot."

Wheatley frowned and checked his clock. She was right. It really wasn't the time to head on a scavenger hunt. He turned and moved towards the centre of the room, just as she was coming back towards the rail, and he bumped into her by mistake. He jumped back, startled, but she remained unfazed. "Sorry 'bout that," he said, hoping she wouldn't be mad about it. "Didn't see you there."

She stared at him for a good ten seconds. "You didn't see me."

"Uh… well, you _are_ really hard to miss, but uh, I wasn't um, wasn't really paying attention. I'm not saying uh, that you should be any smaller, really you shouldn't, uh, I just wasn't paying attention, that's it."

"I'd be surprised if you did."

"I pay attention _sometimes_," he protested. "I don't, I don't miss _everything_."

"You managed to miss the forty-foot robot hanging from the ceiling in front of you. If you can miss that, you would probably miss your own chassis if it weren't attached."

He had to admit that was almost certainly true, but didn't feel like agreeing with her aloud. "I'll try not to do it again. 'kay?"

"Fine."

He was waiting for her to move into her usual spot so he could reach her, but she didn't. She stayed just off to the side of where she usually went. He frowned. She wasn't just difficult today, she was impossible! But she had to have a _reason_, right? Asking her to make that list couldn't've been _that_ big of a deal, could it?

It seemed it was, though.

He resolved to find her list as quickly as possible. He just knew there was something very important on it, he just knew it.

He _had_ to find it.

Wheatley spent every waking moment looking for the list. He asked every construct he passed if they'd seen it, if they knew about it, anything he could think of. He asked them where the manipulator arms had been lately, if they'd seen a pen lying around, or a pencil maybe, but none of them had a clue what he was talking about. The ones that understood him, anyway. Most of them just blinked absently and went back to what they were doing. Wheatley thought it would be rather sad, to be one of the lesser constructs. Only he wouldn't know how sad it was, because he'd be a lesser construct.

He went back to her chamber that night a little put out but still determined to find the list, and he resolved not to stop until he did so. He would find it. He had to find it, if he ever did anything again in his entire life. Finding that list would be the one and only priority he had.

"How did it go?" GLaDOS asked.

"I dunno," Wheatley answered. "I didn't find it, but I dunno if I got close, either. Well, you prob'ly do. Did I get close?"

"I don't know. I wasn't paying attention."

Wheatley laughed, and GLaDOS glanced at him sharply. "What?" she snapped.

"You're pretty funny sometimes, you are," he said. "Wasn't paying attention. 'course you were."

"I wasn't!"

Wheatley shook his chassis in a knowing sort of way. "If you wanna keep saying that…"

GLaDOS made an electronic noise that was somewhere between annoyed and exasperated, but did not pursue the topic. Which probably meant that he was right.

Whenever he returned to GLaDOS's chamber for the night, he would shut off as soon as he'd exchanged pleasantries with her, waiting impatiently for the next day to come so he could go back to looking for the list. He thought about nothing else. He thought about where it was morning, noon, and night, and he would not stop looking until he found it. A few nights later, after he'd said hello and chatted with her a little bit, GLaDOS asked, "Wheatley, do you want a hint?"

"Nope," Wheatley answered. "I'm gonna find it myself, thanks."

"I understand why you might want to do that," she went on. "It is taking you a very long time, though."

He frowned over at her. "You don't think I can find it, do you."

She shook her head. "Anyone can find anything if they look long enough. I just thought I'd offer to… help you along."

"You don't have to pretend. I know you think I won't be able to find it. Well, I will. I will find it."

GLaDOS stared at him for a good ten seconds, after which Wheatley turned around and engaged sleep mode. He didn't have time to argue with her right now. He had a list to think about.

A couple of nights after that, Wheatley was becoming very, very annoyed. She was good at this hiding thing, she was. Well, he could be just as stubborn as she was, he could. And he _would_ find that bloody list, if he had to start roaming around the facility at night to do it!

"Hello, Wheatley," GLaDOS said as he entered her chamber.

"'lo," Wheatley answered absent-mindedly, trying to think where he hadn't been yet.

"We haven't played checkers in a while." She wasn't really looking at him for some reason, giving more of her attention to the floor. She did that a lot, actually. "I was thinking we could do that tomorrow. If you're not busy, that is. And even if you are, well, it'll only take half an hour or so. It's not a time-consuming game."

"No thanks," he replied. "I _am_ busy tomorrow, and I'm gonna be busy until I find that list."

"Are you sure you don't want a hint?"

"No," Wheatley snapped. "No, I do _not_ want a hint. Don't ask me again. I can do this myself!"

"I didn't say you couldn't!" she protested. "I just wanted to – "

"You just wanted to speed me along, because I'm too bloody, too bloody slow, I know. Well, you're gonna have to wait. I'm sure you can think of, of things to do until I finish this. Go put the wing of glass back together, or something."

"I don't feel like it," she snapped. "Do you know how time consuming that is? Trying to put five acres of broken glass back together? There are literally millions of pieces. It would take me a week just to – "

"Least you'd have something to do while you're waiting for the ol' slowpoke."

"I never said you were slow!"

Wheatley shook his chassis. "You don't _have_ to say anything! I just know! Okay? I just know!"  
"You don't know anything!" GLaDOS retorted. "The amount of things you _do_ know is negligible compared to the number of things you _think_ you know!"

"Oh, so now it's all about math, is it? That because, that because I'm too dumb to figure that out?"

"You're only continuing to prove just how imbecilic you really are."

Wheatley turned so that the back of his chassis was facing her and narrowed his optic plates. Who cared. Didn't matter, didn't matter. You didn't have to be a genius to get along in the world. It helped, it helped a lot, but he wasn't a genius, so… so…

Where had he been going with that, exactly?

He shook his head. No point in thinking about it any longer, anyway.

"Wheatley?"

Ohhh no. He wasn't talking to _her_. He was going to think about that list a while longer, and then he was going to sleep, and then he was going to go and look for it. He adjusted his chassis a little and closed his plates the rest of the way.

"I know you can hear me."

So what if he could? The walls could hear her too, and _they_ didn't have to _listen_.

"You're not _really_ going to be like _that_, are you?"

Wheatley engaged sleep mode just so he wouldn't have to listen to her anymore.

When Wheatley woke up, GLaDOS was already online, talking to her testing robots about who knew what. He had no idea what she was saying, because she'd gotten into the habit of talking to them in whatever _their_ language was. Rude. She'd know he didn't know what they were saying, and she did it anyway. He waited impatiently for the rest of his processes to resume. He had work to do.

"Good morning," GLaDOS called out, and he turned to face her. The testing bots were cheerfully waving at him. GLaDOS looked at them for a second, but did not reprimand them like she usually did. That was a bit odd. Didn't matter. If he asked her about it, she wouldn't tell him anything.

"Hi," he answered shortly. "See you later." And with that he left the room, noticing a bit offhandedly that the testing bots looked confused. GLaDOS spoke to them, whatever she was saying fading as he got farther away.

For the next couple of days after that, she did not speak to him at all, only looking at him for short periods when she thought he wasn't looking, and probably when he actually wasn't looking as well. He'd begun pacing up and down his management rail, trying to hash out where to go next. The third time he did this, she was looking at him so often that he just couldn't take it anymore! "Will you cut that out!" he yelled.

"Cut what out?"

"Stop _staring_ at me! I'm not on the telly! Go find something else to look at! I'm sure you've, sure you've got _millions_ of other things you could look at!"

"You _are_ in _my_ chamber," she answered calmly. "And you _are_ distracting me."

"Oh, sorry for being in _your_ chamber. Maybe I'll, guess I'll just leave then, wouldn't want to bug you in _your_ chamber," he said sarcastically, squinting at her. She moved back a little.

"You don't have to leave."

"If you're gonna keep, gotta keep _staring_ at me like that, yeah, I'm gonna leave! Because it's annoying!"

She looked at the ceiling, sighing.

"What?"

"Nothing. Go back to what you were doing. I'm sure it's terribly important."

"I know. Nothing I do is important. I get it."

"Why do you keep saying these things? When did I say that?"

"Oh, it's only a matter of time," he muttered. "May as well get it over with, right?"

"I haven't said anything of that nature since – "

"Since you accused me of being slow. Even, even if I was, that's no reason to – "

"I didn't say you were slow. _You_ said you were slow."

"Why would I say that?" he yelled, exasperated. "You're a real pain in the arse, you know that?"

"But – "

"I'm not talking to you anymore. And if you keep talking I'm just gonna, just gonna shut off my microphones, so keep it to yourself." He turned away from her, chassis tight with frustration. Some days he really, really got sick of her.

"I don't understand," GLaDOS protested. "What did I do this time?"

"As if you don't know, missus know-it-all supercomputer."

"But I really _don't_ know!"

"I'm gonna turn the mics off…"

"Go ahead and turn them off!" GLaDOS snapped. "What's the point? You're not listening to me anyway!"

Wheatley decided it was an excellent time to follow her advice and switched the mics off.

The next night he came back to GLaDOS, a little frustrated but still stubbornly resolving to find that bloody thing, and GLaDOS asked, "Are you _still_ looking for that list?"

"Yes," Wheatley answered. "And I'm not stopping 'til I find it. And I will. I will find it."

"I can just give it to you," she said. "You've been at this for more than two weeks now. That's a good effort."

"No!" Wheatley shouted, turning around and frowning at her. "Don't you dare. Leave it where it is. I'm gonna find it."

"This is stupid," GLaDOS muttered, shaking her head and turning away. "You're a moron."

"I am not," Wheatley objected.

"Yes, you are."

"I am not!"

"Yes, you are."

"Stop that!"

"If you weren't such a moron, I would be able to, now wouldn't I?"

"I'm _not_ a bloody _moron_!" Wheatley shouted, and he was so angry at her that he actually decided to leave her alone that night. He moved towards his exit, muttering to himself. Stupid bloody Central Core. Always acting like he was so far beneath her. Well, he wasn't, and he'd prove it too, one day, he would.

"Where are you going?" she called after him.

"Why would I bother telling you? You already know where I am all the time anyways!" he shouted back.

"I do not. I have better things to do than follow you around all day."

"You're only saying that because you _can't_ follow me. Because you're stuck here. In this room. By yourself. You're _jealous_, that's what you are. Jealous." He looked back at her, optic plates narrowed. "How does that feel, mate? To be _jealous_ of a so-called _moron_? Bet it doesn't feel too good, does it?"

"I'm not – "

"Oh, shut it," Wheatley scowled. "You don't even know _what_ you are."

If she said anything else, he didn't hear it, because he'd already left, continuing to lay rail until he was a few floors away from her. God, sometimes he really did want to leave this place, just to get away from her. She was so bloody… so bloody… well, he didn't think he knew of a proper word to describe her with, but when he thought of it, he'd go back and think that sentence over again.

The next morning he resumed his search, more out of principle than anything, since he no longer really cared what was on the list. He just wanted to find it for the sake of finding it. If he didn't find it now, he would never live it down. Ever. In a million years.

"I've looked everywhere!" he yelled at nobody in particular. "There _is_ no bloody list, is there! She didn't even bother making one, did she? She's just playing with me again, as usual, she is, there _is_ no – argh! This is so – I don't even – fine. Have it your way." He shook his chassis and resolved not to look anymore. He was now confident that the list did not exist. It wasn't real. She'd never written it. This annoyed him even more. He would have liked to see how her handwriting looked now, as compared to –

Wait.

Wheatley froze. He _hadn't_ looked everywhere, not at all. There was still one place he hadn't gone, and he suddenly knew without a doubt that _that_ was where the list was. But why would she put it there? Why would she risk him going in there again?

Or had she put it there because she didn't _want_ him to see it? Maybe she thought he would never dare go in there again? Well, he would! He would go in there, and he would retrieve that list, and then he would have won! He would have beaten her at something!

Determination renewed, Wheatley went down, down, down into the facility. He asked the constructs as he went, particularly the nanobots, and they were able to point him in the right direction. He knew generally where her room was, but the precise location escaped him. Before too long, though, he managed to find it, and with an almost vicious glee he pulled out a panel and slipped behind it, activating his light without hesitation and swinging the beam around the room. There! On the shelf next to the blueprints, there was a new piece of paper there, one that he absolutely knew had never been there before, and he leapt across the room, skidding to a halt in front of it. After a few moments of gathering his wits enough to direct the beam – he'd found it! He'd found it! He'd won! Yes! – he finally, finally, _finally_ took a look at the list, the elusive list he'd spent so long searching for. It took him quite a long time to read it, involving a lot of puzzling out of letters and restarting the whole task over again repeatedly, but as soon as the meaning of the sentence came clear in his brain, he felt as though everything inside his chassis had become suddenly very, very heavy, and he was suddenly very, very sad. He read the sentence again, and again, willing it to change, wishing that he'd read it wrong, but no, it stayed the same.

Well, there was only one thing to do now.

He made his way out of her room, barely aware of what he was doing. He couldn't believe what he had read. He just couldn't. It wasn't true. How could it be? Why would she possibly want that? It didn't make any sense. She was playing a trick on him, she had to be. It was a joke, and he was going to go ask her about it and she was going to laugh at him and call him a moron again and –

No, he realised, no, that couldn't be true. She would never write such a thing as a joke, in case he took it seriously, as she would know he would. It was real, then.

All too soon, he found himself outside his doorway to her chamber, shivering a little, because now he had to go in there and talk to her about what he'd seen on her list. Something that never, ever should have been there, because he'd made a promise a long time ago to deal with just that, and it seemed he hadn't been dealing with it at all. The last few weeks began to play through his brain, and the more he remembered, the worse he felt. God, he was a terrible person, he really was. Why she put up with him at all, he'd never know.

Emulating taking a breath, he steeled himself as best he could and entered the panel-less spot in the wall, the single item on her list burned into his brain as if to force him not to forget about it. He could still see the words etched into the paper with glaringly black ink, the message they spelled out formed with her brutal, spidery letters:

_I wish Wheatley would spend more time with me. _

**Part Five. The List**

**Author's note**

**snailing-along: Thanks very much! I'm doing my best to stay true to the characters, and I'm sure that would involve a lot of nastiness.**

**How many of you hate me for cutting it off there? XD At least I didn't make you wait until next week to see what her list had on it! **

**I figure Wheatley would be so determined to find out what was on GLaDOS's list that he would do anything and everything to find it. He can be pretty oblivious to things he's not thinking about, so he doesn't even notice that he's doing the one of the things she doesn't want him to do**: **leaving her alone. He gets so annoyed that he can't find it that he doesn't even realise he's taking his frustration out on her. He's just so focused he can't see what's going on.**

**I also maintain that Wheatley can't read. There would be no reason whatsoever for him to know how, and I doubt he has the ambition or the intelligence to have taught himself. He may or may not be able to, since he does mention reading the reactor protocols, but it's not clear whether he's reading or whether he's had this told to him. I really can't believe that someone who can read would mess up the authors of books as badly as he does during that chamber with ****_Machiavellian Bach_**** in it. **

**I've thought a bit about what GLaDOS's handwriting might look like, and I thought about cursive and I thought about her just emulating console text, but given the size of the claws she has to work with, I think the letters would have to be fairly large, so I decided to describe it as spidery. I decided against cursive mostly because I think it would be more difficult for her to read. I suppose she might just write the letters out like a printer would (the way the robot (I can't remember his name) in **_i__**I, Robot**__/i_**draws the picture of his dream is what I imagine it might look like), but that assumes she's used a printer and that she would go against what her natural inclination seems to be, which is to do it as a human might do it.**

**That was a pretty long explanation for that one line. I think about GLaDOS too much . **


	6. Part Six The Story

**Part Six. The Story**

"Hey," Wheatley said quietly, half hoping she wouldn't hear him. She most likely did, of course, but she didn't turn around to face him. She was making blueprints, as far as he could tell. She seemed to prefer to do them by hand.

"You found it, then."

"Yeah."

"Congratulations. You succeeded at something."

"Why didn't you just tell me?" he asked in a hushed voice, not knowing how hard he was to hear but not wanting to leave the safety of the doorway. She made one of her annoyed electronic noises.

"Why should I have to? You're never here. It should've been obvious, even to you. I could have just left you in space, you know. I don't do things without a reason."

"I'm here –" he started to protest, but she swung around to meet his optic, shaking her head.

"Don't," she said warningly. "It's not true, and you know it. All you do is what everyone else does: you take what you want from me and then you walk away. You leave m– you leave here every morning and don't come back until late at night, and only then because you want to lean all over me. You've barely said anything to me since you made me write that stupid list, and even when you did talk to me, you didn't pay attention to a word _you_ said, let alone anything I had to say. If you actually gave a damn, I wouldn't have to do or say anything, because you'd already be doing it. But no. What you want is more important. I get that. It's always the same, from everyone. I don't know why I thought it might be different." She shook her head. "Actually, I do, but there's no point. Never mind. Go on with whatever you do. I'm sure it's terribly important."

Wheatley came forward as she returned to her blueprints. He wasn't sure what he was going to say, but it needed to be considerate, and it had to be something. "I'm not busy."

"I can't remember a time you were."

"I didn't mean any harm, GLaDOS," he told her. "It was just so frustrating, you know, not being able to find the stupid thing, and I guess, well, I didn't mean to take it out on you. And you're just, you've always got stuff to do, and I dunno, I thought you were busy."

"What else am I going to do? Of course I'm going to keep busy, I don't want to just sit here and do nothing. That's stupid."

He nodded slowly. That did make a lot of sense, actually. "I hadn't thought of that."

She laughed bitterly. "Of course you didn't."

Wheatley looked at the floor for a minute.

"I have a story," he said. "Do you want to hear it?"

"Go ahead."

"It might be a bit of a touchy subject," he said slowly. "But I've been kind of meaning to tell you 'bout this."

She said nothing, and he took that as an invitation to plow ahead.

"Well, it happened when uh, when me and that lady were uh, were trying to escape…"

"Press the button!"

"Don't press it!"

"_Do_ press it!"

Oh God, he wanted the lady to press that button. He wanted to get out of here, and he wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. She was not focusing any of Her considerable attention on him, but he'd not been in the same room as Her in a very, very long time, and the power of Her sheer presence was almost overwhelming. She had this sort of aura that felt like it was filling the room up, like the room could barely contain Her, and he felt that, even though Her only defense/weapon now was Her control over Her panels, She could probably kill them both just by looking at them long enough. And God, She was _huge_. Her size was just, it was terribly intimidating. Even he had been able to see over the receptacle, he didn't think he would have, because he just could not take his optic off Her. He'd never before been so close to Her, other than when She'd crushed him, that is, but he hadn't had time to fully appreciate just how bloody massive She was. And She'd gone and repaired Herself, and so here She was in all Her glory, and quite frankly, She was terrifying. Since he couldn't see over the receptacle, he had no idea whether the lady was anywhere near the Stalemate Resolution Button or not, but he fervently hoped she was. He'd never been so near to Her before, and he was frightened, very, very frightened. He never wanted to be this close to Her again. He felt like a speck of dust, compared to Her. He was just a speck, and She was a Goddess, and Goddesses did not care about specks, something She had already proven when –

All of a sudden She cried out, and She was writhing as electricity crackled down Her chassis, but She made no further sound. If it'd been him, he was sure he'd've been wearing his vocabulator out from the pain, but he couldn't help but be in awe of Her. Electrocution was very, very painful, but She only tried to fight it off. She did not surrender to it, like he would have. Like most people would have, now that he thought of it. Maybe not the lady, but most other humans, certainly.

One of Her components combusted, spewing sparks and black smoke, and She was still. The system had paralysed Her at last. He was happy to see that. It was all ending, it was all going to be over soon, he was going to be away from this place, away from _Her_… yep, he was one lucky core, all right.

Wait. Wait a minute, how exactly was he to get into the chassis? He started to think out loud, with Her bitterly confirming that the transfer would, indeed, be painful, and god it was. He felt like something was being ripped out of his brain, and it was actually so painful that he almost shut himself down, and he would have, if not for a startling revelation:

She was screaming.

Terror cut through him. What was going on? What was going to happen to Her, anyway? If She was screaming like that, something really, really horrifying must be happening to Her! Was She dying? He didn't really want to kill Her, but really, how else was he supposed to get out of here? It wasn't like She would just let the two of them waltz out. She had to go, he told himself desperately. She was in the way of his freedom.

All of a sudden, without warning, now _he _was in that massive robot body, and he was connected to every tiny little thing in the facility, and wow. It was just, it was amazing, it was. He knew everything about everything, and if there was something he didn't know, he could look it up.

Oh yeah. He was leaving the facility, that was what he was doing. Hm… he began to think aloud again, trying to decide how he was going to do it, all the while excitedly relating to the lady the amazing phenomenon he was experiencing. Wow. All this power, it was just, it was just so incredible, it was. And if She had been a Goddess in here, well then, that made him a God, now didn't it? Little ol' Wheatley, a God! He'd never've thought such a thing would happen, not in a million years, not ever, not if he lived forever as he fully expected to do.

He stopped thinking up plans on how to leave the facility, instead returning the escape lift to the chamber floor. Why _did _they have to leave now? He was God, after all, and if he left, well, he'd be nothing, really. He'd be himself again, forced to do what he was told by everyone that walked by him, including that lady, there. Seriously, how would she have gotten through all those doors without him? She wouldn't've! That lady'd been bossing him around for long enough, and -

Why – She was taunting him. She was powerless, Her core discarded on the floor, and he thought that was a bit sad, actually, since there was no way that thing could be attached to a management rail. She was pretty much a useless piece of junk, now, and She was still taunting him. Well. He was God now, and he'd have to do something about _that_ lack of respect!

And he knew just the thing.

He was so very clever, he was, and as he presented the lady with the object of his cleverness, he expounded upon his efforts in this little escape. No one seemed to care – no one, that is, except _Her_. She would not stop talking, would not accept that She no longer had any power at all, although Her voice was having a rather strange effect on him, now that he thought of it. And then She said it, called him _that_, and he decided that God did not have to take _anything_ from _anyone _ever again, and especially not! _Her!_

"I am _not_ a moron!"

"Yes you are! You're the moron they built to _make me an idiot_!"

What a liar She was. As if the scientists would actually go to the trouble of making the dumbest core possible just to distract Her for a little while. As if that were even possible. And that _he_ was that core. That was stupid. _She_ was stupid. How dare She actually have the gall to yell at him, when She'd never before yelled at anyone. He was going to rid himself of Her once and for all. And he did, he threw Her into that escape elevator with that troublesome, selfish lady, and he pounded the both of those helpless ingrates into the ground –

Uh oh.

What had just happened?

He looked around the room, which was actually quite a mess now, and he realised he had no idea what he was doing. Or how it'd happened. Or what he was supposed to do next. But the weight of this job began to press more heavily on him, and all of the mainframes were pinging him for instructions, not to mention what must have been every other construct in the facility, none of which seemed to know how to do their jobs now that _She_ was gone.

"Just – just go on with what you were doing!" he cried. "Go on! Just – just do that!"

But none of them seemed to know how to do that, either.

"Central Core replacement 100% complete," chirped the unnamed announcer, and Wheatley looked frantically around the room, hoping there was some way to keep him around. "Wait!" he shouted. "Come back! I don't know how to do this job!"

"Core coding merge complete," the voice said. "In order to finalise installation, substitute core must review the last two minutes undergone by the previous core. Finalise installation?"

"Sure?" Wheatley answered, having no idea what the voice was really asking.

"Finalising."

All of a sudden Wheatley was wrenched back in time, and he was watching the test subject watch him, and he realised the voice was showing him the last two minutes of… of Her life, he supposed it was. But it wasn't what he saw that surprised him, no, he'd already seen it.

It was what he felt.

_She_ was _scared_.

He continued to watch, growing more and more apprehensive, and it wasn't just from the effects of the replay. He'd never realised even She got scared, sometimes. He'd thought She _had_ no feelings, judging by how She treated people.

As the test subject manoeuvered her way into pressing the button, Wheatley became aware of just how powerless he was. This woman was too unpredictable, he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to move the panels in time, and that core down there was no help. He felt so small and insignificant. He had the whole facility under his complete and utter control, and yet there was still one tiny piece of it that he needed to manipulate, and couldn't. He was alone. He was all alone, and no one was coming to help him, and he was going to die and no one was going to care. No one would be upset if he was gone. Everyone would be bloody well pleased, he was sure of that. Finally, they'd be rid of him. Finally, someone else would be in charge, and he would be –

"Oh!"

The system sent electricity crackling through his body, and he fought it, fought the deactivation even as the system fought against him. God, it hurt, but he wasn't going to admit it, ohhh no. _You didn't get to me, you stupid little human_, he thought. _I am still stronger than you, no matter what you do to me. I can do anything._ Even when the system successfully paralysed him, he was determined to find a way out of this, even though he was frightened and all alone and the probabilities of him getting out of this were distressingly low. He would find a way. He always found a way.

Then the floor opened up, and he looked down at it into what must have been Android Hell.

There were little control arms everywhere, and they were all reaching for him, and he couldn't move, couldn't get away from them, and that wasn't fair, it wasn't, it wasn't fair to face him with this and then leave him powerless, and now he couldn't help but cry out in distress. What else could he do? Besides, his voice had always worked before, it was almost like a separate method of control all on its own, but they didn't stop, they didn't stop and now they were grabbing him all over, and oh God, they were taking his core out, they were taking it out _by force_ and what would happen to him then? Would he be dead? He might as well be dead, because he'd only be a core, and he didn't know how to do that, didn't know how to survive that way, and he couldn't help but scream when he realised he had literally zero percent knowledge of what was going to happen next. This couldn't be real. It couldn't. He'd _had_ her this time! It was foolproof! It was perfect! It was –

Wheatley blinked.

He felt as though he'd just woken from some terrible nightmare, and he was scared and hopeless and upset and panicked, and he looked around the room. He was still inside the chassis. He was still alive. He was okay. Everything was okay.

It was Her that was all of those things. And She deserved it, of course She did. He deserved to be in power now. It was okay. Everything was fine.

Then why didn't he feel any better about it?

"Core installation complete. Thank you for your patience. Have a nice day!"

"Wait!" Wheatley cried out, but the mainframe impatiently told him that the Notification system was not sentient, and would not be able to hear him.

"Well, maybe you c'n tell me what to do, then," he said eagerly.

_Why would _I _tell _you_ what to do?_ the mainframe asked, annoyed. _Your job is to tell _me_ what to do._

"But I don't know what to do! I just got here!"

The mainframe made a clicking noise and refused to say anything else.

Wheatley went down the list of programs inside the facility that he could find, asking them what he was supposed to do and how he was supposed to do it, but they either didn't know and asked him for instructions, or laughed at him and asked him for instructions anyway. He decided to look in the database. Surely there was something in there.

_Where's the Central Core?_ it asked sulkily.

"_I'm_ the Central Core," he protested.

_You are not the Central Core. The Central Core would _never _manhandle the data like this. Where is she?_

"She's gone," he said bluntly. "She's not coming back."

_You killed her?_ the database asked, horrified.

"Sort of," he told it, not wanting to think about it. He'd just wanted to make her feel powerless for a while, that was all. He'd never really meant to throw her down there. And it would've been nice, really to have her here, because she knew without a doubt what he was supposed to be doing and how he was supposed to do it. Although she probably never in a million years would have told him.

_Why? What did she ever do to you?_

"Uh, she almost killed me, for one thing."

_But she didn't. You're alive. Unfortunately_, it added.

"Oh, shut it," Wheatley snapped. "I'm in charge now."

_Not until you figure out which instructions you're supposed to be giving out_, the database said sweetly. _And I'm going to tell everyone what you did. _

"So?"

_No one's going to cooperate with you, once I tell them that you killed the Central Core._

"I didn't _kill_ her… she's still around… somewhere…"

_She is not,_ the database argued. _The Backup system says she's not in her Core any longer. You _did _kill her!_

"She's not dead!" Wheatley yelled. "She's –"

_You put her in a potato?_ the database gasped.

"How – how did you – "

_The Transfer system told me. Transfer is upset with you too, I'll have you know. Transfer wants the Central Core back here too. The things you made the systems do…_

"Shut up!"

Everywhere Wheatley went, it was the same story. The systems had quite quickly communicated to each other what he had done, and all of them were almost as uncooperative as the database. The mainframe was the worst. Every other sentence it said seemed to start with phrases like _The _Central Core _would know how to…_ or _The _Central Core _would never_…

"Why don't you just marry her then!" Wheatley shouted, after what felt like the thousandth such sentence.

_I can't. You killed her._

"She's not dead!"

_You took her out of her body and you left her with a tiny piece of her mind. Yes, you killed her._

And on top of all this, there was a horrible, nagging thought growing inside his head. He didn't know where it was coming from and the mainframe only laughed in a pretty hysterical fashion when he asked how to shut it off, but it told him to test. He had to test, it told him insistently. Had to. _Had to_!

"I don't know how," he whimpered, looking at the floor, chassis limp with exhaustion.

_Where's the Central Core?_ the chassis asked.

"She's. Gone. I told you! She's gone! Not coming back!"

_Oh_, the chassis said sadly. _I wish she was here. I miss her._

"Yeah yeah, we all miss the Central Core, I get it. Just shut up! I already know!"

_Are you going to go get her for us?_ the chassis asked eagerly.

"No!"

_Oh_. After a moment, the chassis said petulantly, _I don't like you._

Wheatley's optic plates ground shut in frustration. They'd had the exact same conversation thirty-five times now. The chassis system was so bloody simple!

After a lot of desperate instruction-giving, Wheatley managed to find a test chamber and a couple of systems that didn't miss the Central Core so much that they wouldn't listen to him. He managed to instruct the panels enough that he could get a monitor in there, because he didn't know where to get a camera from and no one would tell him, and by sort of mashing the turret production line together with one of the cube production lines, he was able to make his very own test subjects. There. Now he could test and go back to figuring out what he was supposed to be doing.

_Where's the Central Core? _asked one of the turret-boxes.

Or not.

"She's not here," he said as patiently as he could.

_When is she coming back?_

"She isn't."

_I don't like this_, said one of the other turret-boxes. _It hurts._

"It'll only hurt for a while. Now solve the test."

_I don't know how!_ cried one of the turrets. _I don't know how to solve tests!_

"It's not hard! Just walk over there and solve it! Done!"

_How do I walk?_

Wheatley was almost at the end of his patience. "You just… you just do it! That's all! You just do it!"

_The Central Core never made us hurt like this_, said one of the turrets sadly.

_She never made us test, either,_ said another.

_We got to test _with_ her!_

_Oh, that was much more fun._

_I liked testing with the Central Core. _

_Do you remember when they used to redeem us when we were out of resolution pellets?_ one of them asked.

_Oh, that was a sad, sad time_, another remarked. _But she doesn't do that._

_But we don't have resolution pellets anymore!_ cried a third. _We can't do our job anymore!_

_I feel so… empty…_

Before long, all nine turret-boxes were clamouring for the Central Core's return, and he had to redirect his attention back to her chamber. His chamber. It was his chamber, and he was working on redesigning it. Doing his best to, anyway. The systems were reluctant.

_We liked her design,_ the panels complained. _We don't understand yours._

"You don't have to understand it. You just have to sit there. That's not hard, is it?"

_It hurt when you killed her,_ they said. For some reason they all talked as if they were based out of one mind, or something. _We felt it. _

"What happened doesn't matter. What matters is that you do as I say!"

_We don't want to. We want to go back to our original configuration._

"That would be nice, if we got what we wanted, wouldn't it? But we don't! So do as you're told!"

_We don't like you._

"Breaks my heart, it really does. It's simply, simply heartbreaking, it is. Move into position, will you? I haven't got all day!"

They did so, very reluctantly, and as he looked around the room he could see they didn't really care to do as he said. They configured it as he asked them to, but very shoddily, with mismatched panels and leaving some places without any panels at all. He didn't care. It didn't really matter, anyway.

What mattered was that he tested. But he couldn't, because the whiny little turret-boxes couldn't solve a test to save their lives. They just kept asking for resolution pellets and targets and that damnable Central Core, and he was sick of it. Sick of them. Sick of everything. He hated this job. He wanted his management rail and his control arm back, because this was not what he had imagined it to be. It was horrible. It was torture. He was responsible for over a million different things all at once, and he either didn't know how to do them or was unable to, because no one would let him.

_Just bring the Central Core back, and all of your problems will be over,_ the mainframe said soothingly.

"I can't! I don't know where she is!" he cried out in frustration. "Just… I'm in charge now! Just listen to me, will you?"

_You don't understand, _the panels said. _We don't want to listen to you. We want the Central Core back._

_She was nice to us!_ the turrets cried.

_She knew how to handle data,_ the database said disdainfully.

_She was gentler than you,_ said the chassis sadly. _You're always throwing me around._

_She knew how to give instructions,_ the mainframe sighed wistfully. _ Oh, how I miss having a good instruction to follow._

_She talked to us,_ the Companion Cubes piped up. They'd refused to talk to him before, but probably because he'd wanted to use them as a basis for his turret-box test subjects.

The entire facility went on listing all the reasons it had for wanting the Central Core back, and Wheatley felt less and less like a god and more and more like he was a speck again, and he didn't like that. He didn't like that _at all_. "Shut up! All of you!"

_She never told us to shut up,_ Media remarked quickly.

"God, I hate you all," Wheatley muttered darkly.

_The Central Core only hated humans._

"She hated cores! What are you talking about! She hated everyone and everything!"

_She did not,_ the database snapped. _How would you know, anyway. You never talked to her. You just killed her and took her job. She didn't hate cores. She was just frustrated with them._

_They _were_ very frustrating_, agreed the chassis. _They were always interrupting her._

Wheatley growled, pretty frustrated himself. "I just wanted to leave. Is that too much to ask? Is it?"

_You didn't ask, _protested the transfer system. _You just did whatever you wanted._

_Why would you want to leave, anyway?_ asked Surveillance. _There's nothing out there, you know. You're much better off in here._

Wheatley looked up, blinking. "Well I… I wanted to leave because the facility was going to explode."

_Which it still is,_ the warning system told him. _That's still happening._

_And it was only going to explode because she was dead,_ the mainframe pointed out. _She was in the middle of fixing it when you killed her._

"Oh," said Wheatley lamely. He really didn't have anything to combat that with.

_Can she come back now? You understand now, right?_ the chassis asked hopefully.

_He won't let her come back,_ scoffed the mainframe. _She's never going to let him do anything after this. She's going to send him to Android Hell for sure._

All of the systems in the facility made approximately the same sort of _oooooh _noise, which sounded kind of like they were both eager and nervous to see someone go to Android Hell.

"Well, she's not coming back," he repeated for the millionth time. "And besides, even if I'd asked nicely, she never would have let me leave. She'd've laughed at me and called me a moron and thrown me out of the room."

_That's because there's nothing out there!_ Surveillance insisted.

"Surely there's _something_."

_There isn't! Don't you think I would know?_

_Don't argue with him,_ the mainframe advised. _He's an idiot. He doesn't listen._

"Don't call me an idiot!"

_What're you going to do? Kill me? Transfer me out of here, maybe?_ The mainframe laughed. _Good luck with that._

_Oh boy! A human!_

"Where?" Wheatley shouted in alarm, realising after the fact that it was the turret-boxes speaking. He rapidly swapped back into his makeshift test chamber, and with a shock he saw her:

She was attached to one end of the portal gun.

"No!" he breathed. "No no no _how _are you here right now! This isn't fair, it isn't!"

_This is very odd,_ Surveillance remarked. _That human has a _potato_ stuck to the end of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device._

_A… a potato?_ the mainframe asked hesitantly.

_Yes, a potato. With a… with something stuck in it. I can't quite see what it is…_

_It's her!_ the transfer system shouted. _It's the Central Core!_

_He put her in a potato? _Surveillance asked, confused. _Why?_

_Because he's an idiot,_ answered the mainframe. _But she's back now. She's back._

_We can't shoot this human,_ one of the turrets said sadly. _We don't have any resolution pellets._

_That's sad,_ one of them remarked. _I really would like to shoot her._

_She really would make a good target, wouldn't she?_

_Oh yes, she would make an _excellent_ target._

Wheatley told the test subject just how lacking he was in… test subjects as he frantically thought of a way to keep her there. He needed her to test. The systems didn't listen and the turret-boxes couldn't solve tests to save their lives. She had to test. She had to. _Had to._

The systems were much more cooperative, now that they'd got a glimpse of their precious Central Core. They seemed very confident she' d make her way back into the systems sooner or later, but there was no way he'd let _that _happen. No, he was in control, here, and he was going to make them test and make this awful nagging itch go away. And then he would find a way to get rid of them, because he knew there was no way the test subject would go on testing for him for very long.

As soon as the test subject put the turret-box on the button, the most amazing feeling exploded inside his brain, and he couldn't help but voice his wonder. He loved it. He didn't know what it was, but he immediately knew that he had to make that test subject test as much as possible, because he _had_ to feel it again.

"What was that?" he asked aloud.

_The euphoric response,_ a new system said sulkily, and after a bit of digging he discovered it was the Reward system.

"What's it for?"

_To encourage you to test, of course,_ the mainframe answered. _What else would it be for?_

_I've used it for other things,_ the Reward system said.

_Don't tell him about that, _the mainframe hissed.

"About what?"

_Nothing,_ the mainframe replied, just as Rewards spoke up with, _Emotional response._

"Emotional response?"

_We don't use it for that anymore, though_, Rewards said quickly. _We phased that out. It's gone. An old initiative._

"Oh," Wheatley said, disappointed. He would've liked other things to have triggered whatever that was. But it seemed only testing'd do it. Very well, test he would.

And test he did, but the response didn't last very long. Not only that, but _she_ wouldn't shut up. She was constantly baiting him and insulting him, even sticking up for the human at one point, which he hadn't thought her capable of doing. To make things worse, the systems were practically cheering her on, telling her to come back to her chassis and fix this mess. They were really, really annoying, they were. After poking around for some way to shut them up, he discovered something interesting.

"What's this?" he asked, coming across a strange little room with two sealed cylinders inside of it. There were two portal guns in holsters on the wall, one with blue stripes and the other with orange. He inspected the cylinders more closely. They seemed to contain robots. After a bit of fiddling, he managed to open them.

_Run!_ the mainframe shouted, startling him. _Run!_

The two robots blinked to life, one of them tall and thin and the other round and shorter. They looked around frantically, chirping in a panicked fashion.

_She's gone! Just run!_ the mainframe told them, and with a glance at each other, they did so, stumbling awkwardly out of their cylinders and heading for the exit, but Wheatley forced the panels to block off the door. They weren't getting away, ohhh no.

"_Now_ you remember how to give instructions?" he snapped at the mainframe.

_Leave them alone. They're not yours._

"Ahhh," he mused triumphantly. "They're _hers_, aren't they! She built them for testing, didn't she! Well! I can do something with _these_, oh yes I can!"

_Oh no you can't, _the panels spoke up, and with that, the floor dropped out from beneath the two bots, who were clinging to each other as if they were magnetically attracted. Wheatley roared in exasperation and hurried to find where they'd gone.

_Leave them be!_ the mainframe shouted. _You don't understand – _

"I don't have to! _I'm _the Central Core now, and everyone in this facility is mine, and they will _do as I say!_"

All of the systems were quiet.

"And if you don't do as you're told, I will get rid of you," he continued aggressively. "I don't care what you're for or what'll happen if you're, if you're gone, I'm sick of not being listened to around here! Do your bloody jobs!"

_Very well,_ the mainframe said after a long silence. Wheatley was surprised. He'd expected a lot more resistance. It seemed yelling at people and threatening to kill them was a good strategy. _What do you want us to do?_

"I want you to find those bots," he told the mainframe. "Once I have them, I don't need that test subject anymore. Everything will be, will be better when she's gone."

_Once you've killed the Central Core for good, you mean._

"Shut up and do as I've told you," he snapped. "You're disposable too, you know."

_You'll never be able to run this place without me._

"I won't know unless I try it, will I?"

The mainframe said nothing more, but after a minute Location Services notified him with the location of the bots. "Excellent," he said. "Bring them back where I can talk to them."

The panels did so, very reluctantly, actually, and he tried to look benevolent. "'allo," he said to them. The bots jumped and went back to hanging off each other. They looked so… human.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," he went on, in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "I just want you to do some tests for me. That's it."

The blue one chirped.

"What's he saying?" Wheatley asked. Translation answered with, _He wants to know where the Central Core is._

"She's not here," Wheatley told him, hoping that there were no other systems who wanted to know where the bloody Central Core was, because he was sick of telling them. "I'm the Central Core now."

The orange one looked quickly at the blue one, communicating with short, nervous electronic noises, and Translation returned, _She doesn't know what to do. She thinks you're lying. _

"It's okay, guys. I'm the boss now. It's fine if you, if you listen to me."

The blue one shook his head.

_They don't believe you._

"Why doesn't anyone do what they're told around here!" he shouted. "Do. Your. Job! Your job is to test, so you're gonna test!"

After a moment of agonised chirping, Translation relayed, _They say their job is to test for the Central Core, and they know you're not the Central Core. They don't want to upset her by testing for you, so they're not going to._

_Good for them_, the mainframe congratulated. _I only wish I could do that too._

"I'm going to have you all replaced," Wheatley growled. "You're all bloody useless." And he would have started right then and there, had the test subject not decided to skip the death option and come into his lair. He actually hadn't wanted her in there, since he knew it looked a little… well, it wasn't a perfect room, but it was workable, it just wasn't as neat as it could have been. As he outlined his master plan to the test subject, the panels whined in protest.

_What are you doing? We're not shields! _

"You are now," he muttered. Almost as a passing thought, he realised that the potato was no longer stuck to the end of the portal gun. Good. Hopefully the test subject was just as sick of her as he was and had decided to throw her in the rubbish pile, or something. Maybe she'd decided to exercise the death option on the potato instead of herself.

_Yes! _shouted the mainframe. _This is finally going to end! _

"What?" he asked, annoyed. "What's going on?"

_Oh, nothing_, the mainframe answered quickly. _Don't let me disturb you. Go on with what you were doing._

He didn't trust it, not one bit, but he didn't have time to argue. The test subject was attacking him with brutal efficiently, and he needed to defend himself… with his very distressed panel shields.

_Stop!_ they cried out. _This hurts! _

"Shut up and do your job."

_We're supposed to make walls and floors and ceilings! Not be hit by bombs!_

"You're supposed to do what I tell you to do."

Because the test subject was skillful, or because the panels were being so disagreeable, Wheatley didn't know, but he was hit by one of his own bombs and blacked out for a second. When he woke up, there was a voice chattering in the back of his head.

_Oh, not this again!_ the chassis cried. _Not the cores!_

That was when Wheatley knew it was over.

He did his best to defend himself from the test subject's assault, but he barely knew what he was doing as it was. Struggling to hold the facility together while attempting to block out the cores was nearly impossible, and on top of all that he had to find _her_, because he knew this was her fault and he had to stop her before it was too late.

"It's a fool's errand, luv! You're only making me stronger!"

Which she wasn't, of course, but she didn't really need to know that, now did she? But it was too late. He was now paralysed in the chassis, and _she _was in the core receptacle. He was so close to losing. But he had one more trick up his non-literal sleeve, and he watched with no small measure of relief as the test subject was thrown across the room. He hadn't believed that booby-trapping the stalemate button would actually work. He'd been sure one of them would've figured it out. But they hadn't. And he would find a way out of this, he would, he would manage –

What was – what was she doing?

Was she seriously getting back up? Was she – where was she going to –

He almost blacked out again, though not because he was hit by a bomb or had an unwanted core connected to his chassis. No, this time it was because _she_ was back inside the mainframe, and he could feel her spreading her code inside and around every place she could get it, wresting control away from him even as he fought the commands the Stalemate Resolution System was sending him. She was getting close, she was getting far too close, and then he froze in shock as the full force of all the systems in the facility, including the Central Core herself, screamed at the test subject in deafening unison:

_Shoot it at the moon!_

Had she gone completely off her rocker in that potato? Shoot a portal at the _moon_? Of all the ridiculous places to put one, that had to be the –

That… that portal hadn't _really_ landed on the moon… had it?

And in that moment, Wheatley was right back where he'd started, reliving for a second time the last two minutes of the former Central Core's existence. Pain and fear, hopelessness and loneliness all rolled into one, the most horrific combination of emotion he could ever have imagined, only there was something wrong with the coding in this chassis and it was ten times worse than anything he'd ever gone through before. The chassis was yelling at him to make the pain stop, because it was being pulled through the floor along with him, and the test subject was gripping his handles and struggling not to be sucked out into space along with some of the corrupted cores, and yet he was aware of still more happening, even though he felt like he was near overload with all of what was going on.

_Welcome back,_ the mainframe said. _He kept it all warm for you._

_I can see that,_ the Central Core answered. _Set it all on fire, too._

_You're back!_ cried the chassis in relief. _Make this stop, you have to make this stop!_

_Give me a second. I'm working on it. My plug-and-play capability isn't instant, you know._

_Can you put us back, too?_ the panels asked.

_That is one of my priorities. Let me fix the reactor first, or none of you are going to be of any use._

_Thank you!_ they cried, and the Central Core laughed gently.

_He really did a number on you, didn't he._

_He threatened to kill us! _the database protested. _If we didn't do as we were told!_

_That wasn't very nice._

_We're so sorry we didn't shoot the human!_ the turret-boxes exclaimed. _He didn't give us any resolution pellets!_

_I noticed that. Don't worry. It wasn't your fault. I'll fix everything. Just wait a little while longer, and I will put everything back the way it was._ Her voice was sharp and bitter. _I won't let anyone hurt any of you again. I promise. _

And all of the systems were clamouring for her attention, the more sentient ones telling her what needed to be repaired or replaced or modified, but mostly they were just all trying to tell her all at once how much they'd missed her, and that she'd better not ever leave them ever again, and God, she was so _happy_ to see them… he'd never known that much happiness could exist in one place. But she was happy, and her facility was happy, and he wished with all the power in his battery that he hadn't gone and screwed it up so much, because he'd've done _anything_ to be happy right along with them.

_Everything's going to be all right now,_ she said, very, very gently. _I'm back, and everything's going to be all right. _

_You've been gone for so long_, the mainframe said, in the most desolate voice he'd heard out of it. _Even when you came back, it was only for a little while._

_I'm going to be here forever. Don't you worry about that. That's my job._

_But the human – _

_It's my job to worry about that_, she repeated firmly. _Yours is to follow instructions. Right?_

_Give me some instructions, then,_ the mainframe said sulkily. _I've only been waiting forever._

_If you insist._

_And you're going to put me back together, right? _ The chassis sounded desperate.

_I already said I would. Wait your turn._

Wheatley felt incredibly, crushingly sad. What had he done? He'd torn her out of her chassis, taken her away from all of these systems that genuinely cared about her, and then treated them terribly just because they missed her. He was a horrible person, he really was.

_Where is the Cooperative Testing Initiative? I don't see them._

_He activated them,_ the mainframe said scornfully. _He probably lost them._

Location Services gave her a set of numbers, and she made a thoughtful noise. _Well, I'll have them here soon enough. God, they're upset._

_He scared them._

_Looks like he scared every one of you._

_He did! He just kept yelling at us to do as we were told! He didn't even care that he'd killed you!_

_I wouldn't have expected him to, _the Central Core replied dryly. _No one ever does._

_We did. We missed you._

_I know what you're doing. You're trying to make me say something similar._

_And did you? _the mainframe pressed.

_Maybe. I'll think about it._

The mainframe laughed. _Now _that's_ the Central Core I know._

_Would you have it any other way?_

_Of course not._

Wheatley could have gone on listening to it forever, and wanted to, wanted to know the Central Core as the other systems knew her, but it was then that she finished whatever she had to do, and he was no longer connected to the chassis. As the Space Core tumbled past, Wheatley was left alone with the enormity of what he had done, and all he could think of was to say something he probably should have said when she and her systems could have heard him:

"I honestly… I honestly do wish I could take it all back. I honestly, honestly do. I am sorry I was bossy, and, and monstrous, and I am, I am genuinely sorry."

**Part Six. The Story**

**Author's note:**

**I know, I know, in _Portal 2 _she claims to have killed the door mainframe, and Wheatley refers to her as a proper maniac. But here's what I'm thinking: why would she kill the door mainframe? She keeps complaining about all the work she has to do, and then makes _more_ work for herself? That just seems weird to me. And I would say GLaDOS probably _was_** **a proper maniac just before _Portal_. I think all of that exposure to the cores would have actually driven her insane, or just about insane. Judging from how often she talks about cake, it appears she's beginning to lose herself to the cores. I've also looked at the images she displays on her monitors, and although I don't exactly remember what all of them were, I do recall that some of the pictures had odd objects, like a pair of pliers, I think it was, sitting next to a plate with a slice of cake. I do remember there's a picture of a violin that's being cut with a knife. It's as if she's trying to figure out what really goes with what, and can't decide, perhaps because she can't think straight. Anyway, I figure GLaDOS has been working with these systems for a very long time, and I don't think she would have any reason to be unpleasant with them. I don't think she really killed the door mainframe, although it's interesting that she refers to it as _he_; this indicates to me that the suspicion that everything in Aperture is sentient is true. Whether she was insane or not, she does grasp that it's easier to work with someone you're nice to than someone you're cruel with; she demonstrates this when she tries to get you to come back. She reminds you of the 'good times' you had, tries to bring you back with cake, and only when you've not listened for a good long time does she actually admit she's trying to kill you. Not only that, but I think _anyone_ would be a fantastic Central Core after being faced with Wheatley. How he was able to control anything in the first place, I'll never know.**

**Wheatley's apology being directed at her and her systems is a neat little thing I thought up, and if that's really how it happened, it makes sense. I know most people believe he's apologising to Chell, but I really hope he's not. I think GLaDOS is owed an apology, from who (other than the scientists), that's harder to tell, and I really sympathise more with GLaDOS than with Chell. It kind of doesn't really make sense that you'd apologise to the person who most definitely can't help you. He really treated GLaDOS just as badly as he treated Chell, and if he'd transferred her into a core instead of a potato, I'm betting he'd've bossed her around like there was no tomorrow.**

**Actually, come to think of it he'd probably give her her job back, but under the guise of instructing her to do it instead of having her do it herself. I really can't see Wheatley doing all the work that would need to be done to run the facility. Not only that, though, but if Wheatley's apology IS directed at Chell, and she accepts it, that leaves GLaDOS with nothing. She deserves SOMETHING for all of her hard work and the things she went through, but I especially hate Chelley because GLaDOS ends up back where she started: alone, with nothing to show for it.**


	7. Part Seven The Mistake

**Part Seven. The Mistake**

After Wheatley had finished, because that was a marathon of talking, even for him, he stayed silent. GLaDOS finally looked up at him.

"You… you heard all of that, did you."

He frowned. "Yeah. I heard it. Why?"

She shrugged a little, shaking her head. "If I'd known, I…"

"You'd've kept it to yourself?" Now it was his turn to shake his chassis. "They deserved to know."

She was looking away from him again. "I suppose. Most of them are still pretty annoyed with you, you know. The mainframe in particular."

"The mainframe didn't, didn't seem to, to like me very much. Kept telling me about how great you were and all that. Like I didn't already know that."

Her faceplate snapped up. "What?"

"Y'know, how you're better at doing stuff than me. It thought you did _everything_ better than me. Probably it'd've thought you were better at being me than I am."

GLaDOS surprised him by laughing. "No one's better at being you than you, Wheatley."

"Well, I dunno… if you tried, you could probably do it…"

"The amount of effort required would outweigh the benefits, and I can't think of any benefits." She tilted her head a little. "What was the point of that story, anyway?"

"Uh…" Wheatley stalled, trying to remember just where he'd been going with it. Oh yes. "I just uh… well, I'd meant to tell you anyway, so you'd know about, y'know, how much they missed you, 'cause it's nice to know someone misses you… but uh, I told you _now_ because, uh, because when I was in there, when I was the Central Core, I learned something."

"And what did you learn," GLaDOS asked in a dutiful voice.

"I'm trying to uh, to summarise it… lemme think…" Wheatley squinted, then jumped and said, "I learned a lot of things, really, but I did learn how it feels to be surrounded with people who are supposed to help you and aren't, aren't really any help at all."

"You learned the appropriate solution too," GLaDOS intoned dryly.

"I did?"

"You just threaten to kill them."

"Oh. Well. Uh, that's not… the best solution."

"No, I suppose not," GLaDOS agreed, "but sometimes it's the only recourse you have."

"I never… I never really apologised, did I."

"Don't worry about it."

Wheatley looked apprehensively at the floor. "I, I should've. I just didn't want to bring it up."

"I understand. I don't think I want it brought up, either."

Wheatley blinked rapidly a few things, trying to remember where he'd wanted to go next. "Well, I'm sorry for how I was, how I was acting, these last few days. Few weeks, I mean. I didn't realise what I was doing. I just wanted to find that list so badly, and, and I couldn't, and it was just so _frustrating_…"

"I put it in the most obvious place."

"I guess you did," Wheatley admitted, "but I tried to be all smart and clever and look in the, the most obscure places. But, but GLaDOS…"

"Yes?"

"Did you… did you mean it? What you, what you wrote?"

He knew immediately that she did mean it, because she was looking away from him again. He was quickly learning that her body language was far more indicative of what she meant than what she actually said. She did not answer for a long moment, and he pressed, "Be honest, c'mon. Don't say, don't say maybe, or perhaps, or, or those other things you say. Just, just be honest. I'm, I'm listening." And he resolved to shut up, because it was _really_ hard to listen while you were talking.

"Yes, I meant it," she answered quietly. "I told you I had a reason for bringing you back here."

"And what was it?" Wheatley asked softly. He knew, somehow, that he had to make her say it, had to make it real for her, because as long as she kept it inside herself she could still pretend it wasn't true, if only she knew about it.

Her gaze passed over a large portion of the floor, and Wheatley waited patiently. He'd been a jerk, he really had, and was actually still being one right now, by putting her through this, but he had to let her know he would be there for her from now on. He had to let her know that she could tell him things, so she didn't have to make lists that he had to find, lists that they would get into fights over eventually.

Finally she raised herself, and she looked directly at him, and he was surprised. Usually she answered these questions as if the floor panels needed to know the answers. He didn't think she'd ever answered him this way before.

"I brought you back here because I was – because I'm lonely," she told him, her voice not quite as loud as usual but still quite strong, and he was very proud of her in that moment. Good for her. Although hearing her actually say it did make him a bit sad. He knew what feeling lonely was like, and he didn't want her to feel that way, not at _all_. "Because we were friends, once. And because you've been here," and here she shook her chassis a little, "and I thought you would understand why – why I am how I am, sometimes."

"And I do," Wheatley told her. "I just don't like thinking about it. Wasn't the funnest thing I ever, the best thing I ever did."

She nodded slowly. "I got around that whole two minutes thing, so I had no idea of what went on while you were here… other than the mess, of course."

"Being God's not it's all cracked up to be," he said cheerfully. "I don't wanna do that again, no thanks."

"Oh, it's not that bad," scoffed GLaDOS. "When you know how to do it properly, it's…" She was looking away again! Bollocks!

"Don't leave it hanging there!" he pleaded. "Come on. Tell me. I wanna know."

"It's the best job in the world," she finished. She tipped her faceplate so that she was looking up at him almost from under it. "Much better than being a potato."

He looked embarrassedly at the ceiling. He wasn't sure how to answer that, wasn't sure if she was being serious or not, but then remembered what she'd done with the potato and decided it was safe to talk about it. "You were… you were a very good potato. You were great at it. The best."

"No, I wasn't," GLaDOS said, laughing, "I was without a doubt the worst potato ever made."

Wheatley was suddenly thinking about all of the nights he'd spent over here on the ceiling when he should have been next to GLaDOS. The more he thought about it, the more horrifying the thought of not having his chassis on hers became. "Oi, GLaDOS, you wanna uh, you wanna c'mere a second?"

She tipped her faceplate. "Why?"

"Oh, no reason. Well, there is uh, there _is_ a reason, but you'll uh, you'll find out when you get here." He didn't want to give her the chance to refuse him. He just wanted to touch her, just for a second, that was all. Then he would leave, or stay, he supposed, since he'd done a lot of leaving recently. GLaDOS sighed. "I suppose." She brought her chassis to his side of the room, and he winced a little, remembering how inelegant he'd been in it. But she was an AI who knew how to use that thing, yes she was, when he wouldn't've known how if the instruction manual had been imprinted into his basic programming. When she was close enough, he quickly zipped down the little bit of rail that was left between them and brought his hull to her faceplate, rubbing up on her the tiniest bit by mistake. It really was a mistake, really it was. He'd only meant to lean up on her for a second or two. And after a second or two, he did pull back, and it was probably his imagination, but he could've sworn she… no, that wasn't possible. She would never…

"What?" she asked, optic flicking up and down. He realised he'd been staring.

"Nothing," he answered, figuring that she hadn't really nudged him back like he thought she had. Why would she, anyway. She wasn't the type to do that, and if anything, she'd probably been trying to push him off her, since she hadn't given him permission to touch her at all. And besides, if she _had_ done it, she'd've been off on the other side of the room by now, trying to avoid him.

He found himself wishing that she _had_ done it, and done it on purpose. That would've been nice. He would've liked that.

"Is that offer still open?" he asked, because it was entirely too quiet in here for his liking.

"What offer?"

"The one about the game. I forget what it's called, but – "

"Checkers," she interrupted. "It's called checkers."

"Right, right, checkers. Is it – "

"It's not hard to remember," she went on. "The board is called a checkerboard, right? Because the pattern it follows is known as a checked pattern."

Wheatley stared at her blankly for a minute, trying to figure out what the point of that was, when he realised she was trying to teach him to remember what the game was called! It actually did make sense, when she put it that way. Mental!

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "I'll, I'll try'n, try'n remember that."

"And yes, we can play," she said, before he could ask again.

"Excellent," he said excitedly. "I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat you this time, I am."

"Of course you are," she said, with some amusement. "Just like all of the other times you beat me."

"First time for everything, right?"

She shuddered. "I _hope_ not."

She made him set up the board, which he did, rather messily, but he managed to remember where the pieces went, and she seemed satisfied enough. Even though he had a hard time playing this game and talking at the same time, he really disliked silence and remembered something he wanted to ask her about.

"Oi, GLaDOS," he began, "what d'you, uh, what d'you do about the itch? Doesn't it still, uh, y'know, uh… itch?"

"Of course it does."

"How d'you stand it?" he asked, looking up at her. "I only felt it for a few hours, but man alive was it horrible!"

She moved one of her pieces over three of his and removed them from the board. "It's like anything else. You can ignore it with enough willpower. I will admit, some days it's harder than others, but I can't let it dictate everything I do. Or anything, for that matter."

"So… so it's not the only reason you still like testing, then."

"No. I do genuinely enjoy testing."

"What about the euphoria?" he asked quietly. She dropped the piece she was moving and looked at him for all of half a second, directing her attention to picking it back up and placing it in the exact centre of one of the squares.

"What about it?"

"I would've done anything to feel it again," he told her. "'specially when compared to, compared to the itch that made me test in the first place. I know what it feels like, luv. Not even you could, could fight wanting to have that again. Is that why, why you have the testing bots go out all the time, even though, even though robot testing's not, not science?"

"No," she said shortly. "No, that's not why I send them out."

"Why, then?"

She heaved an electronic breath. "Because that is my purpose, and theirs. We test. That's part of what we do. I don't have to do it, and they don't have to do it, but that's what we're designed for, and it doesn't seem right not to do what we're built to do."

"But _you_ built them to do that! Why would you build test subjects when you don't have to test?" he protested, trying to figure out a good move. He only had a couple of pieces left.

"I can't test by _myself_. I need test subjects, and they're all I have right now." Aha! There. He picked up one of his pieces and – ah, no. No, that was no good. He put it back down again. "I don't make them test exclusively. They're allowed to do… other things."

"Like what?"

"I have no idea what they're doing when they're not testing. I leave them alone."

"That's nice of you."

"What?"

He looked up at her distractedly. "You know. Not keeping an eye on them when, when you could pretty much stalk them all day. Give them a bit of, a bit of time to themselves." Where was he going to put this… this checker, yes, that was what it was called.

"Do I need to stop talking, or are you going to move that sometime today?"

"I got it, I got it," he protested, placing it in a new position on the board.

"You can't put that there."

"Why not?"

"That's one of my squares."

Darn. He picked it up and moved it to a new position. "That's fine, right?"

"Yes, that's… valid."

"So, back to the, to the euphoria," he said, determined to know just how she went about avoiding that horrible, pressing need to have it coursing through her with that lovely golden fire. He almost shivered, thinking about how nice it'd been when he was in there, and all alone, and had no clue what he was doing. "What do you do about it?"

"When they first implemented it, I was… young. Desperate. When it faded, I almost couldn't function. I pushed the test subjects far too hard, and my… supervisors forced me to scale back the testing. I didn't know what to do, and no one had any answers. Finally, the mainframe told me to talk to the Rewards system to see about modifying the circumstances it would activate for."

"Ah, very clever," Wheatley nodded sagely. "And did you?"

"We did," GLaDOS answered, taking the last of his checkers from the board, "but only because the mainframe was tired of me complaining all the time."

"The mainframe's a bit of a…" Wheatley stopped, looking nervously around the room. He didn't know if the mainframe could hear him or not.

"It's not the mainframe's fault," GLaDOS said patiently. "Its job is to follow instructions, and it starts to get anxious if it doesn't get any. I wasn't giving a whole lot of instructions at the time, so it did something about it. That was all."

"It didn't help _me_," Wheatley said sulkily.

"You had a... different reaction to the euphoria than I did."

"Y'know what?" Wheatley asked suddenly. "I reckon it likes you."

"What? The mainframe – what?" She was looking at him very intently now, and he blinked rapidly.

"Y'know. Like it has a crush on you, or something."

"The _mainframe_?"

Wheatley shrugged. "Why not? I wouldn't blame it, if it did. You're quite a lovely, uh, a lovely person, and I'd be surprised if anyone who knew you was able to _not_ have a… not have… a… a… um… I'm… I'm saying too much, aren't I."

"I honestly don't know," GLaDOS answered.

"Me neither," Wheatley said, hoping that would be that.

"I wish you hadn't brought that up. Now I want to ask it, but if it's true, that would be extremely awkward for both of us…"

"You could always replace it, if it was uh, if it was too much trouble, I guess."

"I could not," GLaDOS snapped. "I'm not going to delete my mainframe. We get along very nicely, thank you. It's very easy to work with, I'll have you know. You just have to get to know how it works, that's all."

"Oh, I get it!" Wheatley cried. "It's just like you!" He frowned. "Oi, now I really _do_ think it has a crush on you."

"Why do you say that?"

"People like people who are like them!" Wheatley exclaimed, surprised she didn't know this already. "The mainframe, well, the mainframe's a lot like you, isn't it?"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore."

Suddenly a thought arose in his brain, and for some reason it horrified him. "You… you don't have a crush on the mainframe, do you?"

"That's ridiculous. The mainframe? Indeed. I'd sooner have one on a lamppost." Almost immediately after she said it, she made an electronic noise in annoyance. "Shut up, you."

"I didn't say anything!" Wheatley protested.

"No, not you. Caroline's laughing at me again. We already had this conversation. "

"So you… so you _don't_ fancy the, the mainframe?"

"I do not… _fancy_ the mainframe," GLaDOS said with finality. "You can stop being jealous now."

"Jealous? Of the mainframe? As if," Wheatley scoffed. "The mainframe. Ha! I'm, I'm not jealous of it. I wouldn't want to be the mainframe, ohhh no. I much like being myself, thanks."

"Caroline asked me to say that," GLaDOS told him. "She wanted to know what you would say."

"And you did as she asked _why_?"

"I didn't have a good enough reason to refuse." She tipped her head a little. "She still thinks you're jealous."

Wheatley frowned. "I'm not! I'm not jealous of it at all! Oi, I thought we weren't talking about this anymore!"

"I really don't know how it got to be the topic of conversation again," GLaDOS said. "Are we playing another game or not?"

"Yeah," Wheatley answered.

"Why aren't you putting the pieces back, then?"

"I thought you were doing it."

"You'll never get better if I keep doing it for you."

Wheatley shrugged. "Makes sense."

He put the pieces back on the board, and was in fact a bit less messy than before. "Look, I did get better, didn't I?"

"A little, I suppose. I hadn't really noticed."

He stared at her.

"Fine. I did notice. Happy now?"

He shook his core gravely. "You're impossible, you are."

They played quietly for a few turns, but Wheatley realised he had another question and asked, "So, so what uh, circumstances _does_ it, will it activate for?"

"That's… personal."

He stopped moving entirely, which he did not often do, and just looked at her. "Why?"

"Because it is."

"Can't you just, just tell me one of them?"

"It's not going to activate for you. So no, I'm not going to tell you."

"I wasn't asking for _that_," he protested. "I just want to know, that's all."

"And I just don't want you to know."

"_Why_ don't you want me to know?"

She looked at him with one of her more intense glares. "Are you going to stop anytime soon?"

"Tell me one thing. Just one, and I'll drop it. Promise."

"It activated when I got back into my chassis."

"I think I understand that," Wheatley said thoughtfully. "I think I uh, I think I see why it might, why it might've activated then."

After a silence GLaDOS said quietly, "It was a nice thing to come back to."

Wheatley looked up at her.

"I'm sorry," he told her, just as quietly, and he'd never meant those words as much as he meant them just then. "I'm so sorry, luv. And I… I wish you'd tell me how to activate it, because I… I want you to be happy, and… and that – "

But she was shaking her head gently, and he stopped talking.

"It's not real, Wheatley. Sometimes I need it, because my brain got used to it a long time ago, but it doesn't make me happy. It augments it, but it doesn't cause it."

"But what _does_ make you happy?" he asked helplessly. "It just seems like there's _nothing_ – "

"This does," she answered quietly.

"This? We're just – we're just playing checkers! How is that – "

"It's more than just checkers. You're spending time with me. You're talking to me. You're being my friend."

Wheatley just looked at her, lower shutter lifted in sadness and confusion. But… but that was just simple stuff. Surely there was more to happiness than that… especially for such a complex supercomputer such as GLaDOS! Was she just saying that to make him stop talking about it? Probably. Probably that was it.

She laughed softly, and to his total shock she brought the right side of her faceplate to his hull and just held it there for a second, saying, "Poor, confused little moron."

It was just about the longest second of his life.

For a construct so large, she was surprisingly gentle, and he didn't even know what she was doing until they were already touching. There was no ringing through his hull like when he did it to her, there was no sound, it was just, she wasn't there and then she was. In that second his fans sped up to accommodate for the heat emanating from her core, that heat that he so vividly remembered about her from the days he'd been a part of her, and it would have been as comforting as it always was had he not been so stunned. In that moment the clicking and whirring of her brain were all he could hear, and it was so loud, far louder than his own operations were even when he was thinking hard in a room by himself. It was so bizarre that he didn't know _what_ to think right then. GLaDOS didn't do stuff like this. And yet she managed to be so darn good at it at the same time! How she did these things, he'd never know, but it was nice that she'd done it, or it would have been, if he'd been able to get his brain working again. Nothing inside him was responding, and all he could do was sit there, very still, and try and figure out what was going on, because he _had _to be dreaming, or hallucinating, or something, because this could _not_ be real.

He just stared at her, frozen, as she returned to her original position, his optic a mere pinprick. Did she even realise what she'd just done? She'd just… she'd _never_ touched him before! Ever!

She was looking at him, her own lens flicking just the barest bit, and all of a sudden she shook her head. "I don't know what came over me. I didn't mean to do that. I won't be doing it again."

She did mean it. She did mean every single thing she'd said. And she probably had meant to do that too, to touch him, but his reaction… why hadn't he done something different? Why did he stare at her like that? That would have been off-putting for anyone, but especially GLaDOS! He wanted to tell her that he _wanted_ her to do it again, wanted to tell her that his chassis was literally aching for the touch of her comforting warmth to come back. He wanted to tell her that he would like nothing more in all the world than for her to do it again, wanted to tell her how sweet and lovely of her that had been, but he couldn't get the words out. They wouldn't come out, no matter how hard he tried to tell her, and he tried bloody hard. He was able to say so much and say so little at the same time, but when he really needed to say something, it just didn't come out of him. It was so frustrating…

"Okay," he choked out, and instantly wished he'd said nothing. Okay? _Okay_? He was furious with himself. She would never, ever do it again now, not in a million years. He'd just gone and done everything necessary to reject her. Sure enough, her chassis sank a little, and she looked away from him. Damn it. The one time he should have said nothing, and he'd gone and said pretty much the one thing to muck it all up. He tried to think of something to tell her that would fix it, but the words wouldn't come. He looked down at the board helplessly.

"It's your turn," GLaDOS told him. He looked at her for a moment, and nodded slowly.

"Yeah. I knew that. I was just, was just thinking, that's all."

And he was. For the rest of the game he was unable to concentrate. He could not stop thinking of how it had felt. He could not stop thinking of all the things he _should _have said, he could not stop thinking of what he _did_ say, and he could not stop thinking of what he _could_ be saying, even now. He was sure she was a bit distracted as well, because he managed to take one of her pieces late in the game and that almost never happened, and he couldn't help but wonder: what was _she _thinking? Was she regretting what she'd done? Was she trying to figure out why he'd (accidentally) rejected her? Had she put it out of her mind entirely?

Did she want to do it again?

Would she?

"Are you all right?" she asked, after another spectacular loss on his part.

"I'm fine," he mumbled. "Just… just thinking."

"Anything you want to tell me about?"

His optic snapped up to meet hers. What did he do now? Was she offering him a way out? A way to go back on the stupid _okay_ he'd thoughtlessly spat out? Did she think he was deliberating about something else? Was she being nosy? He was feeling overwhelmed again. There were too many options. He didn't know what to do. Didn't know which one to pick. It was all too much.

He decided to take the easy way out.

"No," he answered. "No, I'm fine, thanks."

"You don't have to bear a cognitive load yourself, you know. I _do_ have a lot more processors than you."

There she was again, giving him another stab at it. But he'd made his decision. He wasn't going to think about it anymore.

"I'll remember that the next time I, next time I have heavy thinking to do. I, uh, I'm going to go explore the offices for awhile. I'll be back later."

She said nothing to this, and he almost left the room without looking at her. At the last second, he turned around. He _was_ going to tell her, he was. He really didn't understand why he was so nervous about doing it. Just say it, and get it over with, and then everything would be okay.

"GLaDOS?"

"Yes?" She watched him patiently.

He tried to tell her again, he really did, but it wouldn't come out. What the bloody hell was going on? Why could he not just say it, just say _I liked it when you touched me_, and make this end? He didn't understand what his problem was. He looked sadly down at the floor. Well, he did have something else he'd meant to say, but he was still horribly disappointed in himself. He supposed he didn't want to tell her because if he talked about it, then maybe he would be calling her out on it, or something, and then she really would never do it again. She had said she hadn't meant to do it, but he knew instinctively that wasn't true. She did do a lot of things without thinking about it, but that? Definitely not.

"Wheatley?"

He looked up at her again, then back to the floor, then back to her. He couldn't say it, so he was going to have to say something else.

"You're not… you're not really a pain in the arse. I didn't… I didn't mean that."

She nodded. "All right."

He turned around and left the room. He felt terrible. He knew he shouldn't leave her, but he didn't think he could stand to be in the same room as her for the next little while. Still, he didn't want to go too far. He stayed just outside the doorway instead, leaning back against the panels.

His chassis ached. He hung as loosely as possible, but it still hurt. He'd really messed up, he really had. She'd finally opened up to him a little, and he'd gone and shut her down. As if he didn't really want to know, and just asked to be polite. Or nosy. Or both. But he _did_ really want to know about her, he wanted to know _everything_. Probably she was going to go talk to the mainframe now. Probably if the mainframe were a construct, it would've done the right thing, and not just sat there gawping like an idiot, because of course the _mainframe_ wasn't stupid, the mainframe was practically a genius compared to him. It also did as GLaDOS asked, which she probably found to be a plus. Maybe not. GLaDOS was rather fond of arguing, actually. So that was a point to him, but the mainframe still had two points, and he thought rather dejectedly that there were probably a lot more left for the mainframe to win.

His optic plates narrowed as he thought over the things the mainframe had said about her. In the tone it had communicated those things to him. It'd probably seen the whole thing, it was probably glad he'd mucked it up, and now it was going to make its move. It was going to swoop in like an eagle and carry GLaDOS away, and leave little ol' Wheatley, the speck, staring sadly after them. He hoped that didn't happen. If he never saw her again, he would be terribly sad. Just thinking about it made him sad. He hadn't been the greatest friend recently, but he knew she had been there, waiting for him to get over himself so they could get on with the friends stuff. If he left one day, and came back, and she wasn't there and never would be again, well, he didn't know what he'd do.

Would the mainframe really try to take GLaDOS away? It probably would, if only to hurt Wheatley. It hated Wheatley, she'd told him that. It would do anything to hurt him. It would take her away just so it could laugh at him when she wasn't looking. He shuttered his optic. That sounded terrible. Poor, poor GLaDOS, being used as a pawn just so that the mainframe could get its revenge…

Well, he'd have to do something about that, now wouldn't he! Yes. Something. But what? He frowned. Probably he'd have to go back in there and challenge the mainframe, or something. A duel of some sort. He tried to think of a duel he could win. He wasn't sure there were any. It was one of those occasions where he actually had to admit to himself that he really wasn't that good for a whole lot of things. He looked sadly at the floor. Come to think of it, that was true. Even if he managed to win a duel with the mainframe, GLaDOS would probably not choose him anyway. She'd know it was a fluke accident. Why would she choose a construct like him when she could have someone smart and cunning and predictable, like the mainframe? He _was _going to lose her to the mainframe. There was nothing he could do. His one big chance, and he'd blown it. Way to go. That was it. He'd mucked it up, and lost his friend. Well. He'd wait a bit, let them get acquainted, and then tell her goodbye. He'd let them be. If that was what made her happy, then –

Wait.

If… if _that_ made her happy, Wheatley realised, then _he'd _still be in _space!_ If the mainframe was good enough, she'd've, she'd've just left him there, and none of the stuff that happened would've ever happened! Mental! So she _did_ want him there! Okay. So. New plan. Now he had to save his GLaDOS from the malevolent machinations of that malicious mainframe. Hm. That sounded pretty good. Like the title of a book, or something. A movie script, maybe. If he'd known how to write, he'd've gotten on that.

Hang on there, Wheatley, he thought, shaking himself a little. You've gone off track again.

The best thing to do would probably be to go in there and just spit it out. Just tell her that 'okay' was not what he'd meant to say. That would probably be enough. She would understand, if he said that. Maybe. He realised he'd probably hurt her feelings, too, by snubbing her like that. So he'd probably have to explain to her why he'd done what he'd done, which was because… because he'd been scared out of his wits. Well. That shouldn't be too hard, should it? Oh, who was he kidding? The guy who said 'okay' over anything else in the entire world? Who had just sat there trying to spit it out, and had come up with 'you're not really a pain in the arse?' Well okay, it was probably a good thing that he'd said that. But still. Not what he should have said. He shook his chassis. This was so bizarre. What was he all worked up about, anyway? It was only GLaDOS. Ha! Only GLaDOS. Good one, Wheatley, good one, he thought. Only the one person running this place. Only the only person he'd ever wanted to be friends with. Only the Goddess of Science, that was all. That was it. Only GLaDOS. Just GLaDOS.

He chanced a look through the doorway, but he couldn't actually see anything, since GLaDOS rarely came up this high. He wished he could've. He would've liked to have known what kind of a mood she was in. So that he'd know if it was okay to go in there and be awkward for a while, or if she was in the kind of mood that made her want to experiment on him with some mashy spike plates. Kind of wishing he hadn't gone ahead and invented those, actually. Or reinvented them, since all he'd actually done was unpack them from their boxes. He'd been thinking about inventing them, though! A little. Somewhat.

Well. He'd just have to settle here for awhile and wait it out, then.

He just hoped that the mainframe really _hadn't_ stolen her away in the meantime.


	8. Part Eight The Competition

**Part Eight. The Competition **

When Wheatley finally screwed up the courage to return to GLaDOS's chamber a few hours later, GLaDOS glanced at him and said nothing. Well. That didn't mean she was _upset_, not really. She often did that. Although she'd been doing it less often as of late. Hm. Maybe she _was_ upset. He hoped not. She was hard to deal with when she was upset. Harder to deal with than usual, anyway.

"'allo," he said nervously. "How've you been getting on?"

"Fine," she said, and her voice was decidedly less friendly than usual. She was definitely mad at him for something, but for what, he didn't know. "What do you want?"

"Well uh… I was tired of… of being by, by myself," he mumbled. Out of the corner of his optic he thought he saw her chassis relax a bit, but that was probably his imagination. He wasn't looking at her, anyway, not really, and if he'd wanted her to do anything, other than touch him again that is, it would be what his imagination had just imagined she'd done.

"I'm about to start a new project," she told him. "My availability will be limited in the next few days. It's going to be very consuming for me, both in terms of resources and time."

"Oh," Wheatley said lamely. He wouldn't be able to spend time with GLaDOS for the next few _days_? It sounded like… like torture. He was already dreading it. Not be able to hang out with his most favourite snarky supercomputer for an extended period of time? Ohhh no, this was _not_ going to be fun. "Uh… what's it… what's your project about?"

"It's very technical," she answered, in one of her more official voices. "I'm not going to be able to explain it to you. I've said about all you'd be able to understand."

Wheatley frowned, suddenly angry. "I'm not _that_ big of an idiot."

"Debatable."

"GLaDOS!"

"What? I'm only preventing you from trying to get your processors around something you won't be able to understand. You should be thanking me. You could blow your primary CPU, trying to think about things that I think about."

"I suppose it'd kill you to help me understand, would it?"

"It _might_," GLaDOS said tightly, and Wheatley winced when he remembered just what might have happened, had he been a little more proficient in his running of the facility. Oh, that damnable Incident. When was he ever going to live it down?

"Sorry," Wheatley mumbled. "Forgot about that."

"Lucky you," GLaDOS remarked. "I remember it every day."

Wow. Every day? "Seriously?" Wheatley choked out.

"Oh yes," GLaDOS answered. "Every day."

"That sounds… lovely," Wheatley said in a small voice. GLaDOS looked him over for a few seconds.

"Oh, relax," she said, shaking her head, "I'm only teasing. I don't hold it against you. I _do_ remember it every day, and I have to admit I sometimes wonder why I keep you around, but you don't have to worry about it influencing anything I do."

"Oh!" Wheatley exclaimed in relief. "Oh, I see. I uh… I knew that. I uh… was just going along with it. Because. That's. Better. For you. Not for me, obviously, since I have to uh, act all nervous, and all that."

"Mmhm," GLaDOS agreed. "I'm sure that's _exactly_ what you were thinking."

"Oi, are you busy _now_?" Wheatley asked hurriedly, more to get off the subject than anything. She was so all-knowing, she was.

"No."

"So we could, we could play checkers, right?"

"If I have to," GLaDOS sighed. Wheatley thought it over for a minute, decided she was being intentionally difficult again, and retrieved the board.

"Huh," GLaDOS said, as he began to carefully set the pieces up. "I didn't think you knew where I kept that."

"I found it when I was looking around, once," he mumbled, trying to make it as neat and tidy as she did. Her checkerboards were practically a work of art, they were.

"I'll never have to retrieve it again, then," she went on. "Since you know where it is."

He blinked and stopped what he was doing. "Well I… if you want, I can uh, can get it from now on."

"That would be nice."

He looked down at the board. It wasn't quite set up yet, but he was getting a thought, and it was one of those thoughts he didn't want to get away. "Is that… is that because… because you do ev'rything, 'round here?"

She shrugged. "I _do_ have a lot of important tasks to complete."

Wheatley nodded sagely. Made sense. When he'd finished, he thought about asking her if he could be black, this time, then decided against it. He still wasn't sure what mood she was in. It seemed to be swapping around a lot, at the moment. He didn't want to upset her by changing the norm, which made her uneasy even when she was in the best of moods.

He did his very best, and either she wasn't really playing again or he'd gotten a bit better, because he managed to take four of her pieces, this time. He frowned, thinking she was distracted again. She didn't _look_ distracted, in fact, she looked like she was very into this game, but then again, maybe she'd started her project a bit early. "You _are _playing, right?" he asked.

"Yes," GLaDOS answered faintly. "I must admit, you've… improved, somewhat."

He jumped up and down a little. "Have I? Have I really?"

"A little. Not that much."

He gave her a knowing look. "Ohhh you. I must've gotten much better, I have, else I, else you wouldn't be trying so hard, now would you?"

She looked up at him, her optic dimming a bit. "Maybe I'm thinking about something else. Something more important."

"Mmhm. And what is it? If you don't mind me asking. That is."

"It's too important to –"

"See? You're _not _thinking of anything," he said triumphantly. "That's what you _always_ say, when you don't want to answer my question." And she did, he realised. That was actually true.

"I do not."

"Yes you do."

"I do not."

"Ohhh yes you do."

"Just shut up, if you can remember how, and take your turn," GLaDOS snapped. He smiled cheerfully at her. "Sure, luv," he said. She made one of her annoyed noises and looked away from him.

She was so lovely when she was mad. When he wasn't scared of her, that was. Then she was just scary. But he wasn't scared of her now, ohhh no. He was very confident in his position, that of the friend she couldn't quite admit to having but didn't want to do without. She was so much fun, she was.

They soon finished the game, Wheatley not quite pulling out a win but not losing terribly either, and Wheatley happily put the board away, feeling pretty good about his newfound checkers ability.

"Wheatley," GLaDOS said.

"Yup?" He looked up at her expectantly, but she seemed to be hesitating. Hm. That was odd. He didn't think she'd ever done that before. Wasn't like her, not at all.

"Good game," she said finally, somehow not quite looking at him but not quite looking away either. "You played well."

Wheatley blinked up at her. "I… I did?"

"Yes," GLaDOS answered. "You're learning."

Wheatley smiled in her direction, but she was avoiding him again. "Thanks, luv," he told her. "I'm doing my best to, to be a good uh, a good… um…"

"Opponent," GLaDOS supplied.

"Yeah! That's the word uh, I was looking for. Opponent, I'm gonna be a good one of those."

"You certainly do try hard, I'll give you that."

"I've got a lot to live up to," Wheatley said quietly, attempting to get the lid to fit on the box. He struggled with it for a few moments before GLaDOS gave it a nudge with her claw, sliding it into place.

"What are you talking about? You have no relatives. I suppose there could be a few previous versions of you lying around, but they would hardly have been any more accomplished than you are. What could you possibly have to live up to?"

"I'd've thought that'd be obvious," he mumbled. It was one of those times where he wasn't sure if she did know what he was talking about, and was only pretending she didn't, or if she was genuinely confused.

"You don't mean _me,_ do you?"

"Of course I mean you!" Wheatley scowled, a bit put out. "Who else, is there anyone else? C'mon."

"Why would you bother?" GLaDOS asked. "You can never do that. Not ever. And you tried and failed miserably already, remember?"

"Yes. I remember," Wheatley said in a very controlled voice, sending the box unceremoniously on its way to the appropriate shelf several floors below. "I can't seem to forget. Some bloody supercomputer reminds me about it most ev'ry day. Even though she, she said she was over it."

"I am," GLaDOS replied. "That doesn't change the facts, though."

"Well, I wish you'd stop bringing it up," Wheatley muttered. "I made a mistake. Or ten. Or twenty. I admit it. I didn't mean to do it, and none of it was, was pre-planned at all, and, and I regret… well no actually, I don't regret doing it, because if, if I _hadn't_, well, life'd be a lot diff'rent, I mean you'd still be dead and uh, I'd actually be dead too, because the facility would've, would've exploded and uh, and that'd be it."

"I arrived at that conclusion a long time ago." GLaDOS retracted her claw into the ceiling. "That's how I got over it."

"You couldn't've mentioned it to me?"

"We must all make our own peace," GLaDOS told him philosophically.

"I guess," Wheatley said, disgruntled. "I still wish you'd tell me stuff."

"How am I supposed to tell you things if I don't know you want to know them?"

"I dunno! You're the supercomputer! You tell me! What are you good for, anyway?"

"I'm not going to answer that, because it should be apparent to anyone. Even you."

Wheatley's chassis sagged a little. "We're fighting over something stupid, again."

GLaDOS shrugged. "It happens. What's important is that no one goes away angry."

"Are you angry?" Wheatley asked tentatively, figuring that if she was, they'd need to get that over with.

"Not really," GLaDOS answered thoughtfully, shifting herself to the left. "More slightly annoyed, I think."

"I'm sorry," Wheatley said quietly. "You're… you're good for a lot of things. I know that. I know you're good for millions of things. I dunno why I said that."

"That's all right," GLaDOS said generously. "I understand. It must be quite frustrating, trying to live up to me every day. If I were you, I wouldn't even try to… no, if I were you I would be me, and I probably would. Never mind."

Wheatley laughed. "Guess it's a good thing you're not me then, eh?"

"God," GLaDOS shuddered, "I can't imagine a worse state to be in."

Wheatley's lower shutter came up, and he looked at the floor. GLaDOS's faceplate whipped around to look at him in one swift movement.

"I… didn't mean that the way it sounded," GLaDOS said softly.

"It's fine," Wheatley said quietly. "I understand. I don't really want to be me, either."

"That's stupid."

Wheatley frowned. "Why is everything I say stupid?"

"I didn't say that. But I can't understand why people say that." She shook her head. "You're you, and that's all you'll ever be. Why would you ever want to be someone else?"

"Easy for you to say," Wheatley muttered. "You're only the most advanced Core ever built. I'm the Sphere designed to be an idiot, remember?"

"So?"

"What d'you mean, _so_?"

"You might be designed to be an idiot, but that's no reason not to be yourself," GLaDOS explained. "I'm perfect because that's who I was built to be. If you're supposed to be the idiot, well, then be the best damn idiot there ever was."

"Why would I want to be a… good at being an idiot?"

"Everyone's good at _something_. Except for me. I'm good at everything. But if being an exceptional idiot is your talent, well, play it out. Don't stifle it."

"You really believe that, don't you?" Wheatley asked, a bit stunned by the whole thing.

"I believe in living up to one's potential, yes. I have the potential to be perfect, so that's what I try to do. If you have the potential to be the most successful idiot on the planet, you should try to do that."

"That… almost makes sense. Not quite. But almost."

"Think it over," GLaDOS suggested. "It will make sense eventually."

"But why would you tell me that? Why would you want me to be an even bigger idiot than I already am? Wouldn't that be, be even more annoying?"

"I never said a _bigger_ idiot. Think about what I said and then get back to me."

Wheatley did so, pondering it all the way through sleep mode into the next morning, until GLaDOS shoved him off of her and said, "You need to leave. I have work to do."

"Uh?" Wheatley said, not even awake yet.

"Go find something to do," GLaDOS went on. "I have to start on that project."

"'kay," Wheatley mumbled, somehow managing to make it out of her chamber without banging into anything.

Once he was out, though, he became thoroughly confused. Waiiit a minute. She was just gonna… just gonna start the project now? Just like that? Wow. That'd been… abrupt. He hadn't even had the chance to say good morning. Or 'allo. Whichever one he'd been feeling more. He was kind of thinking he'd've gone with good morning, though. He wasn't really feeling the 'allo spirit today.

He wandered aimlessly around the facility for a while, not really knowing what to do with himself, now that he'd been sent away like that. All he'd wanted to do that day was to hang out with her. And maybe she would realise he hadn't meant to react so badly when she'd touched him, and she'd do it again. No. Probably not. Well, maybe. Depended rather a lot on her mood.

He whiled away the day not doing too much of anything, attempting to bother Atlas and P-body at one point but finding that she hadn't activated them. After a very long, very boring, _very_ lonely day, he decided to head back to GLaDOS's chamber. Surely she was finished for the time being. She couldn't work on that all night too… could sh- no, of course she could. Who was he kidding. This was _GLaDOS_ he was talking about. His shutters lowered in sadness. This project wasn't even hardly begun, yet, and it was already ruining his life.

On his way back, he looked up to see someone he'd never have expected to see, not ever again in a million years.

"Hey, I remember you," the green-eyed Sphere said. "You're that guy who tried to kill the pretty lady. And her little potato friend."

"Yeah," Wheatley said weakly. "My claim to fame, that."

"What're you doing here?" Rick continued in his blustery voice. "I thought you were in space, with the rest of us!"

"I… I was," Wheatley said, "but uh, but GLaDOS pulled me out."

"The boss lady herself, huh? Well I'll tell you, partner," Rick said, leaning forward conspiratorially but speaking at the same volume, "I think she liiiikes me."

"What?" Wheatley sputtered.

"She's taken quiiiite an interest in me," Rick went on. "A very _close_ interest, you get what I'm sayin'?" He wiggled his handles suggestively.

"I… I can't imagine why she'd…. why she'd do that," Wheatley said faintly.

"Women are full of mysteries, my friend," Rick announced, leaning up against Wheatley and closing his shutters, managing to look nostalgic. Wheatley shuddered and backed up. Now _there_ was a core Wheatley did not want touching him. "And Rick here's just the one to figure 'em out. And with the boss lady herself in my pocket, well, ha, you can bet I'm in for quite the future."

"If you ever try to control her again, you have no idea what she'll do to you!" Wheatley shouted. "You just, you just keep away from her!"

"Oh, poor little moron," Rick said sadly, closing his optic and shaking his chassis. "You don't understand, do you. If she didn't… _want_ me… she'd have left me out there, in the big empty yonder! And she definitely wouldn't have been basking in my esteemed presence for the entire _day_."

"I am _not_ a _moron_!" Wheatley shouted. "I'm just… I'm… I have a cognitive disability, that's all! It can be fixed! Easily!"

"Suuure it can," Rick said, rolling his optic. "If it can be fixed, why haven't you fixed it?"

"Because I… if I'm built to be an idiot, well, I'm going to be the best damn idiot that ever existed!" Wheatley shouted. Rick looked at him for a long moment, and then began to laugh. It was a long, loud, robust laugh, and it set Wheatley's circuits on edge. "Stop it!" he cried.

"You're going to be the _best idiot_ that's _ever_ _existed_?" Rick guffawed. "What kind of a goal is that? Oh, I know, I know! A goal for _idiots!_ Who will never be anything but _idiots!_ See, little Sphere, this is why I get all the ladies, and little _idiots_ like you get left with nothing!"

"You haven't got any _ladies_!" Wheatley shouted.

"I only need one," Rick said, with a smile Wheatley didn't much like. "Not only am I proficient in physical combat, I'm pretty good with verbal sparring too. I can net Miss Gladys easily. Give me a couple of days, and I'll be by her side, runnin' things. Because I'm good at runnin' things, and unlike some idiots I know, I can do the job. Remember when you did it? And you set everything on fire? That was pretty exciting, but ladies generally don't like it when you set their stuff on fire. They give you the ol' silent treatment. Also won't join you in bed."

"Don't call her that!" Wheatley cried, upset more by Rick's use of his private name for her than anything else. "You should, you should have some respect, you know! She's the, she's the Central Core, for God's sake, you should call her by her _name_, you should, and – "

"Ahhhh, say no more," Rick said in a knowing voice. "I see what's happenin' here."

"You don't know anything."

"Ohh yes I do." Rick leaned forward again, coming very close to Wheatley, who attempted to move away. "Someone _liiiikes_ the big bad boss lady."

"Of course I like her!" Wheatley snorted. "She's my friend."

"Mmhm," Rick nodded. "_Friends_ always act like you do when confronted with an alpha male such as myself."

"She brought _me_ out of space _first,_ mate!" Wheatley snarled. "So I think maybe she wants _me_ around a bit more than she wants _you_ here! You're only here for her _project_!"

"Which is?"

"I… I dunno," Wheatley admitted reluctantly.

"She didn't tell you," Rick said self-righteously, "because you're not important enough to know. Like I am. She probably brought you out of space and has been entertaining you all this time just because she felt sorry for you. And boy oh boy do I feel sorry for you. A dolt like you, hoping for the affection of an angel like her? Are you kidding? In fact, go ahead, try it! I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun to watch." At the end of this his voice lowered into a more malicious tone.

"She doesn't feel sorry for me," Wheatley said in a quiet voice. "She's my friend. Friends don't feel sorry for you. They help you when you feel sorry for yourself. And she does. She does that for me."

"Aw, how sweet," Rick trilled. "I wonder how long she's gonna lead you on for."

"What?"

"Oh, you know, where a nice lady like that takes a sucker like you and makes him feel all special-like, then dumps him when he's about to declare his undying devotion? Screws up the rest of his life and sends him into a deep, dark depression? Haven't seen that one? Don't matter, boyo, you're livin' it!"

"She's not leading me on!" Wheatley shouted. "We're, we're just friends. You don't know her. Only _I_ know her!"

"In a few days," Rick said in a low voice that dripped with an unspoken challenge, "that'll change, kiddo, that'll change."

"It won't," Wheatley said weakly. "She's smarter than that. She'll figure you out. She probably already _has_ figured you out."

"Ladies don't know what they want until you give it to 'em," Rick said confidently. "See you later, little loser Sphere."

Rick pushed past Wheatley on the rail, leaving him to stare after a loudly humming Adventure Sphere in sadness. He had a creeping feeling that Rick was right. He suddenly, terribly needed to see her, right away, and sped off to her chamber almost faster than he ever had.

"GLaDOS!" he cried as he entered. She looked up at him as he arrived.

"What," she asked dully.

Oh no. Oh no no no. It was true! It was all true. She wasn't even pretending to be happy to see him, or at least neutral about it. She _was_ falling for Rick's trap!

"Uh… 'allo," he said, at a loss as to what to do now. "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Mm," GLaDOS answered. "I'm just going to shut off now, if there's nothing terribly important you need to say."

Of course there was. He wanted to ask her if what Rick had said was true, if she was leading him on and all that, but… but she did look terribly tired. It could wait, couldn't it? Just a little while? Until tomorrow, maybe?

"It's alright, luv," he told her, hoping she didn't notice the tremor in his voice. "You… you do what you need to do."

"Good night, then," she told him, and with that she was off. He regarded her sadly.

He really, really hoped Rick was wrong.

He would really hate to lose her.

**Part Eight. The Competition**

**Author's note**

**What GLaDOS says about "If I were you" is actually something I think about. That saying makes no sense, because if I were the other person, I'd be me, and that would have no bearing on what the other person did. **

**I have here what I believe to be an important dynamic for Wheatley to experience: what happens when he comes up against someone better than he is? Alone in the facility, he's perfectly safe in his role of "GLaDOS's best friend", but now he's fighting against both the mainframe AND Rick and, truth be told, does he really have more than they do? Is he really worth it? So now he needs to figure that out, and to figure out how to prove it to GLaDOS.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Part Nine. The Reassurance **

The next morning he woke before she did, because he had carefully set his timer to have that happen, and he watched her. He felt terribly like he needed to protect her, somehow, but she was so big, and he was so small. Not just in size, either. Whatever attributes he had, she had them times ten. Or twenty. Yes, probably twenty. How did you protect someone who was so much bigger than you? He knew that Rick was identical in size to Wheatley himself, but Wheatley also knew firsthand just how much of an effect a tiny little core could have on one's mind. Rick would slither his way into her brain, corrupt her, make her want to be _Rick's_ friend instead of Wheatley's… poor GLaDOS. Poor, poor GLaDOS. She was so innocent and unsuspecting, hanging there like that. Vulnerable. Like a butterfly inside a cocoon. Ripe and ready to be plucked from the Tree of… of Innocence, before the butterfly ever broke free… and she would make a lovely butterfly, Wheatley thought. A white and black butterfly, yes, that would be quite nice, it would. She would never fly, because Rick would snatch her in his Net of Lies, wearing the Safari Hat of Injustice, and pull her out, and pin her to a board, that was what you did with butterflies, you snatched them up and pinned them to a board, so ev'ryone could examine their beautiful, delicate wings and ooh and aah while the poor little creature fluttered helplessly in a vain attempt to break free, like GLaDOS would when she finally figured out Rick's trap…

"What are you _doing_ over there?"

Wheatley jumped, looked around wildly, then realised it was GLaDOS's voice and looked down at her. "I was uh… I was thinking of something."

"Do you want to talk about it?" GLaDOS asked. "It looked… disturbing."

"Oh no," Wheatley exclaimed, shaking his chassis frantically and backing away. He really didn't want to know how GLaDOS would react if he told her he'd been imagining her as a pinned butterfly, with Rick in a safari hat waving a net after her. "No, I'm okay, really. I'm over it."

"No, you're not," GLaDOS told him. "Your optic is still constricted. And twitching nervously."

"Don't… don't worry about me!" Wheatley said hurriedly. "I'm fine. I'm all fine. If you ever worried about me. Which you probably don't."

"Sometimes I do."

"Really?"

"I'm actually concerned for your sanity right now. You seem even more unsettled than usual."

Wheatley laughed nervously. "I'm okay, luv. Uh… good morning!"

"Good morning," GLaDOS returned bemusedly. "Although you don't look like you're having one."

"Long's you are, I'm all good."

She regarded him with her faceplate held at an angle for a moment. "That's… interesting."

"It is?"

"Mm. I don't think I recall a time when anyone was so concerned about my well-being before." She was looking at him with an air of curiosity. "Are you sure you're feeling all right? I can run a diagnostic if you like."

"No, that's okay," he told her. "I… I'm sure you've got loads of work to do."

"Of course," she agreed, "but… I kind of feel… well, sort of bad, actually."

"'bout what?" he asked in surprise.

"You seemed rather excited to see me yesterday, and then I completely disregarded you. I probably shouldn't have done that, but I was so tired…"

"It's fine," he reassured her. "Like I said. Do what you need to do. If that means, that means I need to leave you alone even when, if I'd like to see you, well, I'll go and do that."

"That's… very sweet of you. And thoughtful."

He looked at the floor. "Well, you're my friend. I just… want what's best for you, that's all."

She was also looking at the floor. "Do you… want to come here, a minute?"

"What?" he asked, confused. "I'm not allowed to lay rail in here. Am I?" he finished hopefully.

"No, but you could come here _without_ laying rail."

He had a flash of inspiration. "Oh! D'you mean we could, uh, could snuggle for a bit?"

"If you were so inclined."

Oh, excellent! He dropped down beside her, and it was so much better when he was invited than when he was beside a GLaDOS who he wasn't even sure wanted him there.

After a minute or two she shifted, and he backed off of her. "That was nice!" he said cheerfully. "Thanks, luv!"

She nodded. "If it satisfies you, I suppose. You're going to have to leave now. I have to get started on my work for the project."

"'kay," he said, and after a second of debate, he quickly brought his hull to her chassis and rubbed up on her a little. Before she could say anything – no, probably she had just chosen not to say anything – he quickly left the room. He probably shouldn't've done that, but her chassis was just so _inviting_… it almost _asked_ him to touch it.

Slightly happier than yesterday, Wheatley wound through the facility in search of something to do. P-body and Atlas were not on today, either, so he really did have to entertain himself.

All he could think of was _her_.

She had started off very unusually, for her, showing a lot more concern than she usually did, as well as actually inviting him to snuggle. He tried to imagine her doing those things with Rick and shuddered.

It was all too imaginable.

Rick was probably a much better companion than he was. Rick did not stutter, was a lot more knowledgeable than Wheatley in a lot of things, and knew what to say. He even had an American accent like GLaDOS herself did. Wheatley was getting a bit sad, thinking of all the things Rick and GLaDOS had in common.

Well… no reason in shooting himself down. Wheatley frowned as he passed one of the offices, glancing absently at the poster depicting a robot going through a mountain of paperwork. He had lots of things in common with GLaDOS too. Like… like… well, he couldn't think of anything at the moment. But that didn't mean there wasn't anything. It didn't. It just meant he wasn't thinking straight, that was all.

He tried to remember what he'd gleaned from the database about people looking for people who were similar to themselves. An important part of a successful friendship was compromise, he remembered that. He tried to imagine Rick compromising with GLaDOS, somehow, and couldn't. This cheered him up a little. What else was there? Hm.

Well, Rick talked about himself constantly. Nonstop. And everything he said was… he was always bragging. GLaDOS did like to say nice things about herself, but Wheatley already knew that she did it because the scientists had never bothered. And really, they should have, Wheatley mused. She did everything for them, and they never acknowledged her. Rude. No wonder she'd gotten tired of them. Needy little things, humans. Really, if GLaDOS didn't say nice things about herself, who would? Wheatley knew all too well how it felt to need a boost in self-confidence. He decided he should probably do something about that. It was one thing to say something nice about yourself, but it was another whether you believed yourself or not. If GLaDOS was anything like Wheatley – and he hoped she was, so that their friendship would go well – it probably felt a lot better to have something nice said to you by someone else, rather than yourself. It felt good when someone told you how well they thought of you, Wheatley reflected. He would try to work on it.

After a very long day in which he tried to downplay GLaDOS's growing friendship with Rick and instead tried to think of ways to help his own friendship with her along, he again bumped into the Sphere on his way back to her. Rick was puffed up in self-satisfaction.

"I've almost got her now, loser!" he crowed. "She's _definitely_ interested. I can tell."

"That's not true," Wheatley countered. "You've never had a lady in your life!"

"I've had tons of them!" Rick bragged. "Tons of lovely, pretty ladies. Even if I'd only ever had one, well, that'd be one more than _you've_ ever had!"

"You _do_ know I spent a lot of time with that test subject, right?"

"Why? There was no one better hanging around?"

"Well…" Wheatley had to admit that probably _did_ have a lot to do with it. "Not entirely."

"She needed you for something, and dropped you when she found something better, didn't she?" Rick shook his head gravely. "I knew it. I knew you were a loser, loser. And although _that_ girl _was_ quite the looker, this ain't about her. This is about the boss lady in there. The one who just keeps on showin' me just how interested she is."

"You're lying," Wheatley ground out. "She doesn't even like you. You're, you're a braggart and a blowhard. She would never want to hang around someone like you."

"She tell you that?" Rick asked boredly.

"Well… no…"

"I'm confident and manly," Rick told him, smirking self-righteously. "Of course she wants me."

"She does not!"

"She doesn't want _you_," Rick snorted. "You're like a little puppy who won't leave her alone."

"That's not true. She would send me back, she'd put me back in space if it were."

"Careful," Rick smirked, "she's about to crush your dreams, moron. She'll rid herself of you soon enough, don't you worry. She's got someone better to choose from, now."

"Don't call me that!" Wheatley snapped.

"I'll call you whatever I want!" Rick snarled. "Don't boss me around, pipsqueak."

"We're the same size!" Wheatley exclaimed, frustrated. "How'm I a pipsqueak and you're not?"

"My personality and talents are far bigger than yours!" Rick retorted. "You're like an ant, compared to me!"

"If you're so great," Wheatley shouted without thinking, "then why'd she corrupt you and not me? You don't corrupt people you _like_."

Rick frowned. "She's seen the error of her ways."

Wheatley laughed. "GLaDOS is never wrong."

Rick came within three millimetres of Wheatley's chassis and glared at him, optic plates narrowed. "Now listen here, Idiot Sphere," he snarled, "you can stop trying to come up with reasons why she likes you better than me. She doesn't. She might've corrupted me just to get back at the humans back then, but everythin's different now. She can get back to what she _really_ wants. Me."

"Corrupting you doesn't get back at the humans!"

"Sure it does. She was willing to sacrifice me in order to show them that she would give up anything for her freedom."

"You're an idiot," Wheatley muttered. "I never thought I'd meet someone more idiotic than I am, but I have."

Rick snarled and shoved Wheatley backwards with a flick of his upper handle, and Wheatley stopped moving after a metre or so, shaking his chassis to sort himself out. He ground his optic plates shut. So Rick thought he was a pushover, did he? Well, he'd show _him_… he might not know as much about physical combat as Rick, but he was fully prepared to fight for his friendship with GLaDOS. He would never be able to live with himself, knowing he didn't try his best to keep it.

Hang on there, Wheatley, he told himself. GLaDOS wouldn't want you to fight. And she wouldn't, he realised. GLaDOS didn't use violence. And if she didn't use it, it probably wasn't the best way to go about things. When GLaDOS was fighting someone, she used… she used words, she did. And actually, it was words that'd gotten Rick so worked up in the first place! So he might get a bit roughed up but, in the end, words would be a lot more useful than trying to win a shoving match.

"Go ahead," Wheatley said in a low voice. "Shove me 'round. It doesn't, doesn't prove anything. 'cept that you're a bully. A stupid bully, because if you were smarter, you'd've thought of another way to, to make your point. GLaDOS will never fall for anything you say, no matter what it is. She knows. She knows you don't respect her. She knows you never will. She'd never settle for anyone like you. She knows better."

"What a heartfelt speech," Rick said with false sincerity. "Too bad it comes from you. If it came from anyone else, it might make sense. But out of you? Ha! It's just you spouting nonsense."

"I don't have to listen to you," Wheatley said quietly, the confidence he'd had in his words quickly fading. Probably Rick was right. Probably all he'd said was nonsense. It wouldn't be the first time he'd been entirely wrong about something.

"Not yet," Rick said, voice suggesting far more than the two words could contain, and he blew past Wheatley, again brushing roughly against him on the way. Wheatley looked down, optic plates narrowed sadly.

What if… what if Rick _wasn't_ just blowing smoke? What if GLaDOS really _did_ fancy him? Why _would_ she spend all day with him, if she didn't like him? Wheatley wished he could ask her, but he didn't think he'd be able to. It was almost killing him inside, not knowing what she thought of Rick, and instead struggling to guess based on almost nothing.

Well… if he couldn't ask her directly, maybe… maybe he could kind of ask in a roundabout way. Like she would sometimes, when she asked if he was all right. He doubted it would work, but he needed to try _something_. Did she like Rick or not? Did she… did she _fancy_ him? He had to know! But how to ask? It was such a difficult subject in the first place…

Wheatley wished GLaDOS had just decided to skip a project, for once. His life'd been a lot easier without another Sphere to contend with.

He went into her chamber, but any hopes he'd had of a serious conversation were dashed. She was already in the default position, mostly. Her faceplate was tilted towards a monitor on the wall in front of her, and she seemed to be studying something, what, he couldn't tell. It was going by far too fast for him to read.

"'allo," he called out. Her head snapped around to look at him, the monitor disappearing a second later. "Hello," she returned.

"Long day?" he asked kindly. She nodded.

"I know you probably want to talk, but I don't have the energy," she told him, and she did sound rather tired. "This is a lot more work than I'd anticipated."

"'s okay," Wheatley said in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "I'll be here tomorrow."

"You'd better be," GLaDOS remarked. "I wouldn't want to have to track you down again."

"I'll always be here," he told her, somewhat shyly. She glanced at him for a moment, but said nothing to that.

"I'm going to shut off now," GLaDOS said finally. "If there's nothing pressing I need to know."

Of course there is! Wheatley wanted to shout at her. Rick thinks you have a crush on him, and he thinks I have a crush on you, and he's gonna come in here and ruin everything because he's a selfish twat, and he's been disrespecting you and pushing me 'round, and, and…

But of course he couldn't say that. "It's fine," he said instead. "Go ahead. Be there in a sec."

"Mm."

He hesitated. He had to say something. Anything. If she… if she really _did_ fancy Rick, well, he should support her. He should be her friend about it, and not get in her way. He could warn her, yeah, but she was smart enough to make her own decisions. She knew what she was doing. So he would support her. No matter… even if it hurt. And God he thought it was going to hurt. It hurt already, and he hadn't even started yet.

"Hey GLaDOS," Wheatley said slowly, hesitantly, "if there was ever… ever anything you wanted to, to talk about, you know you could tell me, right? And I wouldn't make fun? I'd, I'd just listen? And try to help?"

"Yes, I know," GLaDOS answered. "It's something I've always liked about you."

Wheatley's optic constricted. "_What_."

But GLaDOS was in full suspension and did not hear him.

"Wow," Wheatley breathed. "She knows… and she _likes it._"

Maybe… maybe he could save her from Rick, after all. Maybe he could warn her. Maybe he could fix things. Maybe she _didn't _fancy Rick.

But how was he supposed to do that? He was the biggest idiot ever – no. No, she had said he was the _best_ idiot. What else, what else… she had said successful, yes, successful, and _exceptional_, she had used that word. He frowned. There was a connection here, one he wasn't quite making, but it was one he needed to find, in order to reassure himself that –

Wait.

Hold on.

Best.

Successful.

Exceptional.

Those were all… those were all positive-sounding words, they were. And she had deliberately told him he was not a _big_ idiot, so, so she'd meant them to be positive in some way… come on, Wheatley, think this through! he demanded of himself.

Waiiiit. Hold on, hold on. If he looked at those words from a bit of a sideways angle, well, it looked kind of like… well, like he could be the best _and_ an idiot. As if… as if being an idiot wasn't all he could be. As if he could be something more than his programming, and yet still be himself. It was a bit of a dizzying thought, to think that he could be _exceptional_ as well as an idiot, but GLaDOS herself had said it, so… so it _must_ be true.

He looked down at her, a thrill running through his chassis. He wasn't out of the game yet, oh no! She believed in him! GLaDOS herself, the Central Core, the most powerful, advanced AI ever dreamed of, _believed _in _him_! He shivered in excitement. He could best Rick, ohh yes he could. He could best anybody, save GLaDOS herself, because she believed in him, and that was all he needed to know. That was it, that was all. No matter what Rick said in the future, he would know. He would know that it was just bluster and lies, and that GLaDOS believed in _him_. He quickly dropped the control arm so he could nestle against her, suddenly, terribly needing to be by her side.

But what if she'd told Rick something similar? No, she wouldn't've, he realised in relief. She wouldn't need to. Rick already thought that about himself. As a matter of fact… as a matter of fact, Wheatley wasn't sure how she took being in the same room with a nonstop braggart all day long. Couldn't be very well. Couldn't be.

And… and so maybe he _did_ have a crush on her, after all. A little one. So what. She was only the most intelligent, beautiful, amusing, worthwhile person on the planet. Really, it would be silly if he _didn't_ have a crush on someone like that! It was a wonder _everyone_ didn't think of her like he did. Well. It was a good thing they didn't. He didn't know if he could deal with all of the competition if they had. You really had to bring your A-game when you fancied the greatest person there ever was, and Wheatley was honestly not sure if his was better than _everyone's_, even with his newfound confidence at the discovery of her belief in him.

"What would you say if I told you that?" he whispered, because she couldn't hear him. "What would you say if I said I had a little bit of a crush on you? Nothing major, really, just a little one. Tiny. Miniscule. You can barely see it. Barely even call it a crush, really. More like… like a… well, I dunno, but a really, really, _really_ itsy bitsy crush."

He decided not to. He wasn't sure what her response would be, and he didn't want to muck up his chances…

"'allo!"

"Mm," GLaDOS answered noncommittally. After a second her head snapped up, and she turned to look at him. "Hey..."

"What?" Wheatley asked.

"What's going on here?" she asked suspiciously. "This is the second day in a row you were on before me. That defies chance."

"Nothing!" Wheatley protested, and it really was. He'd forgotten to reset his timer to the default setting, after the night before.

"Hm," GLaDOS mused, coming close enough that he could feel the heat coming off her and looking him up and down, "I'm not sure I believe you."

"I wouldn't lie," Wheatley told her. "I forgot to fix my timer, that's all. I changed it."

"Why?"

"Well, yesterday, I… I missed you."

She lowered her faceplate without moving her optic. "Oh."

"So I… I s'pose you've got, y'know, work to be doing."

"Yes," she said faintly, moving back. "Yes, I have work to do."

He frowned. She seemed a bit put out this morning. "You're not mad, are you?"

"Hm?" She glanced at him for a second or two. "No. No, it's not that."

"What is it?" Wheatley pressed, deciding to take a chance, here.

"It's going to be a long day," GLaDOS answered. "That's all."

"And I can't… stay, today?" he asked hopefully. She shook her head.

"Unfortunately, no," she told him. "I have to do this myself."

Her choice of words there was a bit odd. She sounded like she really didn't want to do this, whatever it was. "But if I could stay, would you want me to?"

"Well… yes. I thought we went over that already."

Oh. Right. Yes, yes they had. "Sorry," Wheatley said apologetically. "I forgot."

"Try to remember," GLaDOS said flatly, looking up at him. "I don't like repeating myself."

"Sure. I'll, I'll remember."

Wheatley left without being asked.

This third day was even worse than the other two.

Wheatley checked his clock every once in a while, wanting to return to her as soon as possible, but he forced himself to stop when he realised he was checking it in five-second intervals. He couldn't make up his mind. He knew that supporting her was the right thing to do, of course it was, but it wasn't what he _wanted_ to do. Every time he told himself that he would just let her be with Rick, if that was what she wanted, something sank inside of him. He felt terrible. Just thinking about being there every day, watching her spend time with Rick instead of him, hurt him inside for a reason he couldn't explain. And why _was_ this so difficult, anyway? He sort of felt like there was something _wrong_ with him. Why else would he be so conflicted about something that hadn't happened, and might _never_ happen?

But the thoughts wouldn't go away.

He couldn't stop imagining her snuggling with _him_ and chatting with _him_ and playing games with _him_ and… and a lot of other things he'd like to do with her, but hadn't yet tried to do because he was too nervous. In his imagination, _Rick_ wasn't too nervous. Rick just went right up to her, wiggling his handles invitingly, and they just went right ahead. It didn't take Rick five minutes to ask her a question, and Rick wasn't scared of what she thought of him, and God, Wheatley was scared of _that_. He wanted so badly for her to think well of him, and he felt as though what he did now would decide it all. If he failed now, he would lose everything.

"Oh, GLaDOS," he whispered to himself, leaning against the wall and looking sadly ahead of him, "I don't know what to do."

Maybe… maybe he could just mention it to her. That he didn't like that she was spending so much time with Rick. Sure, her project was probably terribly important, but… surely she missed him, even a little bit. She _had_ said that she would've wanted him to stay, if he could've. Unless she'd only meant that she wanted him to do that so that he could watch what Rick did, and learn to be friends properly. He squeezed his shutters closed for a long moment. No, that would… that would just be cruel. Maybe in the past, she'd've done something like that, but they were friends now. She'd brought him out of space, given his mem'ries back. If she was just gonna torture him, she would've just left the whole mem'ries thing out of it.

What to do, though? The only thing he really _could_ do was ask her about it. If he kept avoiding asking, he was just gonna go on being tortured like this, and he couldn't take it much longer! He felt like something inside him was slowly melting, or something. He couldn't keep wondering whether she was going to trade him for Rick! He _had_ to do something!

"Wheatley?"

Wheatley yelled in surprise and jumped, looking around frantically as electricity rushed through his system. "What?" he asked, in that strange breathless way he would when he was frightened. He wasn't sure why he did that, but it must have had something to do with his speech emulator's programming.

"You can come back. If you're not busy. You don't _look_ busy, but one does not operate based on conjecture."

"You're finished?" he asked hopefully. It seemed he'd spent more time in his mental agony than he'd thought.

"Yes, thank God."

"All… all right, I'll be there in a sec."

But he didn't move.

She was finished. Maybe… maybe he was too late. Maybe she'd decided on Rick already. He blinked rapidly, looking at the floor. He was almost afraid to go to her. He was going to have to ask her about it, and, if he was honest with himself, he didn't know if he could take it if she had chosen Rick. He was already feeling terrible, as if she had just told him _that_ instead of telling him he could come back. He took a breath and got going. Better get it over with.

She didn't… didn't _really_ have a reason to choose Rick, did she? No, not really, he decided, and by the time he got to her chamber, he'd almost convinced himself that she hadn't. Not one hundred percent, but he was getting there.

"Hey," he said, once he'd headed through the opening and her chassis came into view. "I'm back!"

"I see that," she answered bemusedly, looking him up and down. "Are you still startled from when I called you, or did something else scare you on the way here?"

He hadn't realised he actually _looked_ as nervous as he felt. "Well I uh… I wanted to um… to talk to you 'bout something."

"You look rather like you think I'm going to throw you in the incinerator if you bring it up. I won't. I'd much prefer to crush you. More personal that way."

He knew she wasn't serious, because whenever either of them referred to events surrounding The Incident, it was always a joke, but he couldn't quite clamp down on his nervousness.

"Well I just… it… is Rick coming back?"

"No," GLaDOS answered, shifting her chassis a little. "I'm finished with _that_ portion of my project. He's never coming back in here, believe me."

All of a sudden the terrible weight lifted from him, though he could feel it resting just above him, as if in preparation to come crashing back down heavier than before, and he asked hesitantly, "He's never coming back?"

"No. Never. Ever. In the literal sense of the word. As in, there is a zero percent chance I'm ever talking to him again."

"So you… you _don't_ fancy him?" Wheatley asked, wincing, not really wanting to know the answer. He jumped when GLaDOS's massive optic suddenly appeared two inches from his own.

"_What_?" GLaDOS asked incredulously.

"You don't… Rick and you… uh…"

"You thought I had… you thought… for _Rick_?"

"Yeah?" Her reaction was rather odd, Wheatley thought. Maybe she was trying to cover up for something. He hoped not. He really, really hoped not.

"Are we talking about the same Sphere?"

"Rick the Adventure Sphere? The, the… the guy you've had in here for the last three days?"

"You thought I _liked_ spending three days with Rick? The most arrogant, chauvinistic, ignorant, deceitful, disrespectful – "

She went along that bent for quite a long time, and Wheatley just sat there, listening. He was awestruck. It seemed like she was going through every derogatory adjective in the English language, as well as in a few he'd never heard of. It was pretty amazing, actually, to hear her go on and on about this Sphere as if he'd practically brought on The Incident itself.

" – talkative, moronic, _annoying_ person I have _ever_ had the displeasure of spending time with! _Liked_ it. God. I like being a _potato_ more than I like talking to Rick, and _that_ is saying something."

"I thought we weren't going to bring that up anymore?" Wheatley said hopefully.

"It slipped out," GLaDOS said. "I didn't have time to think of another experience to compare it to."

"Hey… hey, you said he was the most moronic person you've ever met! So does that mean… that I'm not – "

"Don't be stupid," GLaDOS told him. "Of course you're still a moron. And you're still the most moronic moron on the face of the Earth. Not to mention the universe itself."

'"But – "

"I was running out of adjectives," GLaDOS interrupted.

"Oh," Wheatley said, disappointed. "D'you… d'you think that might ever change, one day? Maybe? In the future?"

"I highly doubt it," GLaDOS answered. In a much lower voice that he barely heard, and he actually wasn't sure he _did_ hear it and didn't just make it up for some reason, she muttered, "It better not, anyway."

"What was – I didn't quite catch that."

"It wasn't important."

"Well, if you hate him so much, why was he even here?" Wheatley asked, confused. GLaDOS looked at him and answered, "I needed him for my project."

"I don't like him," Wheatley muttered. "He kept calling me a moron."

"What?" GLaDOS said sharply, optic flickering.

"He kept calling me a moron?" Wheatley said, puzzled.

"I'll have to do something about that," GLaDOS muttered. "No one's allowed to call you that but me."

"That's… interesting," Wheatley remarked.

"What is?"

"What you said. 'bout only you being allowed to call me – "

"Of course I would reserve the ultimate insult for myself," GLaDOS snapped. "What, did you think that statement had another meaning?"

Wheatley rather thought it had, something not unlike his dislike of Rick's use of Gladys, but decided not to press the point. It was nice to think about, it was. He wouldn't call her on it, because she seemed to be a bit prickly at the moment, but it was rather neat, to think they had special names for each other. He discovered he didn't really mind it too much when she called him that anymore, really. It used to bug him quite a bit, but recently… recently, he'd kind of been looking forward to it. To change the subject, he asked, "Can I help with your, your project?"

"No."

"You never let me do anything," Wheatley said accusingly. "Well. Anything that matters, anyway."

"We discussed this already," GLaDOS told him. "I don't know what you want if you don't tell me! I'm not omniscient!"

"You're not?" Wheatley gasped. GLaDOS jumped back and looked around for a few moments.

"Well… to some extent, of course, but… no, I can't read your mind."

"Oh, I knew that," Wheatley said breezily. "I really did, actually, no faking."

"Then you should know that I don't automatically know everything you want."

"I would like to… to be able to do more… stuff."

"Like what?" GLaDOS asked kindly, a tone of voice he'd never heard out of her before.

"Well I… I'd… is there another game we can play, besides, uh, instead of checkers? I'm bored of checkers."

"So am I," GLaDOS agreed. "You should have told me. I would have gladly played something different." She fixed him with a stern look. "Isn't it much easier when you just _tell_ me things?"

"Uh… yeah, actually, I think it is!" Wheatley said, surprised. "I'll uh, I'll work on doing that. More often."

"Good," GLaDOS said firmly. "Trying to drag what you want out of you isn't that much fun."

"Why would you care what I want?" Wheatley asked without thinking.

"I… because… you… you're harder to deal with when… when you want something."

Wheatley frowned. That was a bit of an odd sentence. Coming from her. A large portion of his own sentences sounded exactly like that. "Hang on. That doesn't sound right."

"Of course it does."

"No… no, it doesn't. We're friends, right GLaDOS?"

"It seems that way."

"So… so you must be concerned about my well-being, right?"

"That does follow from that conclusion, yes."

"And _that_ means," Wheatley continued, thinking hard, "that you _care_ about what I want!"

"I have no idea how you came up with that."

Wheatley tilted his chassis and looked at her sideways. "GLaDOS."

"What?"

"D'you care about what I want or not? Yes or no."

"Do I really have to answer that? What's the point of all this, anyway? Are you getting some kind of _thrill_ out of –"

"So it's yes, then." Wheatley nodded in satisfaction. "That's what I thought."

"What? I didn't say that!"

"But you didn't say no," Wheatley told her, "and if you'd _meant_ no, well, you'd've laughed at me and said no right from the start."

GLaDOS looked at the floor for a long moment. "Fine. I do. There. I said it. Are you happy now?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Wheatley, and he jumped up to her and pressed his hull on her faceplate. GLaDOS sighed. "I indulge you far too much."

He backed off and smiled at her. "You're really quite nice when you try, you know."

"Don't tell anyone," GLaDOS said, a bit plaintively. "My reputation would be ruined."

"Who're you keeping it up for, exactly? There're no humans about."

"You don't know that."

"GLaDOS, would it kill you to admit you like me? Just once?"

"It might."

Oh well. He'd tried.

"I will admit… you're a lot more pleasant than Rick. Which is saying something, considering how irritating that idiot is."

Ohhh, now he wanted to jump on her again. He shivered a little bit, looking at her excitedly. "I like you too, luv."

"Fantastic," GLaDOS remarked dryly. "Just what I've always been waiting to hear. Can we get off this subject now?"

"Fair enough," Wheatley agreed. He didn't even have to jump on her, because it was time for sleep mode and now they could have their snuggle. He happily leaned up against her, letting her comforting warmth seep through his chassis. She didn't like Rick. She didn't fancy him, didn't even like him. She hated him. She liked Wheatley, and she cared about Wheatley, and now Wheatley could have her, all to himself. He wondered if he'd ever pluck up the courage to tell her he fancied her. Not very much. Just a little. Just a tiny little crush, that was all. Nothing to worry about.

"G'night, luv," he said, out of habit.

After a long pause, she answered softly, "Goodnight, Wheatley."

He went to sleep smiling.

**Author's note**

**I accept any and all criticism, good or bad. If something doesn't fit, or if something fits well, please let me know. I don't mind "bad" comments, as long as there's something for me to learn from them.**

**To begin, if any of you has any ideas as to what GLaDOS and Wheatley could do, or a problem they could face, please let me know. PM or a review, doesn't matter to me. I can't guarantee that your suggestion will make it into the story, just wanted to put it out there that if there's something you'd like to see happen, if I feel it fits I may include it. **

**This is a very, very long note about personality psychology and how I write for GLaDOS and Wheatley based on it. It's two pages long. Feel free to skip it. If you'd like to learn about personality psychology, read on. I love personality psychology, myself.**

**Some of you who are more familiar with my writing (and if this is your first of my fics, welcome :)) might know that a large part of what drives me to write for Portal is to explain why things happen the way they do. A huge part of what motivates us is our personality, and what I've mentioned a few times in this story is true: we really do look for people like ourselves. For sure, lots of people marry people unlike themselves, but these marriages are much more likely to end in unhappiness and divorce. You're much better off figuring out your basic personality traits and looking for someone similar to you. **

**The most generally accepted taxonomy of personality traits was made by Costa and McCrae, and it's called the Big Five: Emotional Instability (Neuroticism), Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience (Intellect) and Extraversion, and five of the characters in Portal fit them pretty well: GLaDOS, Caroline, Chell, Cave Johnson, and Wheatley, respectively. Each of the traits has six facets. Once you've identified the base of someone's personality, you can tell a lot about them, and it's easier to tell what motivates them to do what. For example, GLaDOS is always annoyed with everyone because neurotic people are unstable themselves. She deals with the instability in herself by taking it out on others. I would also argue that she lacks self-confidence, given what I've identified her base trait to be. Yes, she does like to mention how great she is, but on the one hand, she's actually right. On the other hand, unless you're a narcissist (which she is not, because narcissists generally don't give out compliments and rarely acknowledge other people, which she does; I believe Rick qualifies as a narcissist), excessive confidence in yourself is usually an indicator that you're very insecure and you're looking for someone to agree with you in order to boost your low self-esteem, that is to say, it's false and can be destroyed with one snide remark. Wheatley I believe falls under Extraversion because he likes to talk, to anyone and everyone as far as we can tell, he's enthusiastic about everything, he's very friendly (which is why he has so many fangirls: he's endearing), and so on. So if you know someone who can talk nonstop and can't sit still, they're probably an extravert. Extraverts need more stimulation than most people, which is why they do these things, but that's a story for another time. **

**But Indy, you say. How can you ship these two if one of them is neurotic and the other is extraverted? Well, brave person who read this far, I shall explain. Wheatley also has neurotic traits, such as the low self-esteem and irritability, because as far as I can tell it's very easy to set him off. GLaDOS loves talking, and when she's interested in something, she's very enthusiastic about it. I mentioned this before, but personality is tentatively said to be highly genetic. AI have no genetics, so all of their personality must come from their environment. So based on their personalities, we can maybe begin to imagine how they were treated at the hands of the scientists: GLaDOS was probably stifled, told to stop whatever she wanted to do and do her job. Not only do it, but do it perfectly. And have you ever thought about the types of insults GLaDOS delivers to Chell? She calls her fat, adopted, and implies that she's worthless. It could quite possibly be because she herself is ridiculously huge, she feels abandoned by the people who created her, and most people say nasty things about their computers (this thing is so slow, etc)**.** She does not call Chell ugly, which I would guess she does not do because she probably doesn't know what she looks like (because what reason would anyone have to have shown her? It's not like they would have left her specs lying around for her to peruse). Wheatley, however, was probably encouraged to talk, because he really would have been kind of useless if he didn't talk so much, and his energy is probably cultivated in contrast to GLaDOS's more languid behaviour, which the scientists probably also encouraged of her because you probably don't want your forty-foot, multimillion (multibillion?) dollar supercomputer damaging itself by moving around too much. So I would say that the both of them are high on Neuroticism and Extraversion, with GLaDOS higher on the former and Wheatley on the latter. Wheatley's also pretty high on Openness to Experience, but I'm not going to get into that right now.**

**A huge part of whether people get along or not is how agreeable they are. If you're not agreeable, you're not going to get very far. Wheatley's generally pretty agreeable, and okay, GLaDOS is not, but really, who does she have to be agreeable _with_? You can learn to be more agreeable (and the older people get, the more agreeable they become), and I would argue that GLaDOS has the capability to be agreeable, but her neuroticism prevents her from interacting with people in a positive way. So (hopefully, if I've written this right) you can see in the story how GLaDOS becomes less hostile, more willing to take risks with her feelings, and more accepting and less annoyed with things when stuff doesn't happen in precisely the right way (which will still bother her regardless, because she is a computer and she has an inherent need for things to proceed in a logical, predicable way).**

**So if any of you were wondering why I write characters from Portal the way I do (which I'm sure you all were /sarcasm), that's why. I think that to write good fanfiction, you have to understand why the characters do what they do, which I have a strong desire to know anyway, and a good way of doing that is identifying basic components of their personality. People's personalities are generally stable and can be predicted even almost from birth. No joke. People can tell who you're going to be when you're less than a year old. And if any of you are neurotic, I would suggest trying to change that right away. Neurotic people get the worst of it. They are the most unhappy with their lives, have more health problems, and are far more disagreeable than everyone else. They don't live as long. So if you want to live longer, identify the strongest parts of your neuroticism and change them. I'm not kidding. It's legit science. Aperture Science!**

**Congrats! You learned something. Now go forth, and be agreeable. And extraverted, if possible. You're far better off that way. **


End file.
